
Leaflets of Truth. 




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LEAFLETS OF TRUTH; 



OR, 



Light From the Shadow Land. 




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M. KARL, 
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CHICAGO: 



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Copyrighted by 

S. R. Miner. 
1886. 



Printed and Bound by Donohue & Henneberry, Chicago. 



DEDICATION. 



TO THE DEAR PUBLIC. 

HAVING cracked a few nuts for you I shall not 
proceed to pick out the kernels. That some will 
find them bitter to the taste I have no doubt — there is 
nothing that makes a thing seem so unsavory as preju- 
dice. 

But that there are others to whom they will be full 
of sweetness and nutrition I hope and believe. 

If one soul is sustained, one heart gladdened, one 
life lived purer and truer, because of a perusal of these 
pages, my task is accomplished. I have my reward. 

With love to all who are sad, and sympathy for all 
who suffer, from whatever cause, I recommend each 
one to the unswerving love of " Him who doeth all 
things well." 

The Author. 



INTRODUCTION. 



I AM an honest churchman. I make this assertion 
in the beginning, that it may stand out so boldly 
and clearly in the reader's mind that there may never 
be any doubt as to my position, whatever of doubt or 
mystery the perusal of the following pages may call 
forth. 

Tom Jeffreys is my old classmate. I do not approve 
of him. I never have. He is a roaming sort of an art- 
ist, sure to turn up in all sorts of odd times and places 
and with no apparent object in life save to enjoy it. 
Not that he is immoral. To the contrary, it has 
always been a puzzle to me how a man holding his pe- 
culiar views should be able to live a wandering, old 
bachelor's life, with a pure character and no bad habit, 
save the detestable one of smoking. For Tom is an 
"Agnostic." 

He says it, and defends his position coolly and 
decidedly under my very nose. He even affirms his 
position to be more logical and sensible than my own 
Faith. 

He maddens me at times, does Tom. And were it 
not that I know him to be thoroughly sincere and hon- 
est, in spite of his wicked unbelief, I would long ago 
have had nothing more to do with him. But a man so 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

truthful and kind-hearted as he I have always cher- 
ished a hope of converting, at last, to the true Faith. 

And the best proof of some unusual merit in the 
following articles, is, to my mind, in the fact that they 
have evidently made an impression on Tom, for he 
sent an exquisitely carved font to our church recently 
from no one knows where. After a careful perusal of 
the articles I have found nothing contained in them 
directly opposed to the Apostles' Creed, and several 
things quite consistent with the teachings of the 
church, therefore, since Mrs. M. is a churchwoman, and 
accepts the sacraments, I presume she is a very good 
woman, indeed, in spite of her abnormal and unac- 
countable peculiarity of " hearing voices,'' and hope 
her prayers may always keep the evil one from her. 
Still it seems to me very dangerous to subject one's self 
thus to an unknown influence ; and for myself, I should 
scrupulously avoid all such ways, deeming the Bible 
alone " sufficient unto salvation " as taught by the 
fathers. 

Yet these articles, lying upon my hands, have been 
an ever-increasing burden of care to me ; and for the 
sake of those who are stumbling away from God, like 
poor Tom Jeffreys, I have concluded to give them to 
the public, trusting that when any averted faces are 
turned, by this or any other influence, toward the 
light, they may gradually and surely be led to perceive 
the " True light which lighteth the whole world." 

If any condemn my course in this I recommend 
him to that Charity which should be cherished toward 
all men. 



INTRODUCTION, 



The subjoined letter from Tom, and following 
articles, are just as I received them from him by mail 
with much astonishment one morning not quite a year 
ago. M. Karl. 



TOM JEFFREYS' LETTER. 



MY DEAR FELLOW,— I send you herewith a 
bundle of manuscript, which seems to be more 
in your line than in my own, although I confess it has 
given me some new thoughts and queer sensations. 

To tell you all the particulars of how it fell into my 
hands would require too much time and (you know 
my habits) effort. 

Suffice to say a woman is in it; a woman is in most 
of the perplexities of this world, where, although we 
concentrate all our energies upon finding, after awhile, 
a soft spot for ourselves, the one soft spot that any 
man finds is at last in his little seven feet of earth ! 

Yet if all that you will find in this manuscript could 
be true — but pshaw! where is the proof? — no doubt 
the woman is crazy; although in all other matters she is 
sound as a nut, and as sensible a little woman as ever 
it has been my luck to know. 

I met her when I was stopping at a hotel in D , 

a nice little city in Iowa. She was boarding there with 
her husband (a good fellow) and child. We all became 
quite friendly in a general way, and had several inter- 
esting conversations on the veranda after supper in the 
pleasant summer evenings. 

She is a sensible woman — no objections to a cigar 

9 



IO TOM JEFFREYS LETTER. 

and all that sort of a thing, you know, — husband 
smokes. 

One evening we got to talking about a lot of spirit- 
ualists that were having a powwow of their own in the 
town, with ghosts, and table-walkings, and no end of 
queer doings — one medium woman thrusting her face 
repeatedly into the flame of a lamp without being 
burned. (Some acid on it, probably, though they said 
not.) Well, Mrs. M. (she objects to having her name 
given) expressed herself quite strongly as opposed to 
" modern spiritualism,'' because of the immorality and 
license which many of the class who sail under that 
name allow themselves, claiming their own personal 
desires and instincts to be superior to all Christian 
teachings; yet are tolerated, together with barefaced 
fraud, by others in the ranks whose own lives are pure. 

I rather took the side of the independent thinkers, 
claiming a man is justified who honestly acts a convic- 
tion, no matter what that conviction may be; though 
of course I believe their magnetism and clairvoyance 
and mediumship all bosh ! — all to be explained by nat- 
ural causes if they were understood. 

Judge of my surprise next morning when Mrs. M. 
gravely handed me an article purporting to be through 
" inspirational writing." She claims to have " heard 
voices" since her childhood; that " the voice" has 
always helped her toward all things good and admon- 
ished her when wrong. Her husband bears out her 
assertions, but is unwilling her name should be made 
public. 

She says that lately she has been able to write what 



TOM JEFFREYS LETTER. II 

she hears; that it is said to her slowly as one would 
speak waiting for another to write. She invited me to 
ask any questions that I would, saying she would ask 
for an answer and get it if she could. She says she al- 
ways prays before asking a question, to keep influences 
that are not holy and pure and of Christ away from her. 

The manuscript I send is the result of questions 
which I asked, and she answered, from time to time. 

I am on the eve of flight to other lands. 

Hoping you will be able to make more out of this 
than I can, I remain, your affectionate friend, 

Tom Jeffreys. 



CONTENTS 



Dedication 3 

Introduction 5 

Tom Jeffreys' Letter 9 

ARTICLE I. 

How are what are termed Fire Mediums able to handle fire with- 
out being burned ? 15 

ARTICLE II. 

Why do spirits, when controlling a medium, so frequently compel 
the medium to "take on " the feelings and sufferings which 
they last experienced in their former earth form ? 19 

ARTICLE III. 
What is Evolution? . . 25 

ARTICLE IV. 
What is the Will? 29 

ARTICLE V. 

Is the sun the great center of the electric forces of its system; and 
of this will force as well, a center ? 33 

ARTICLE VI. 

Are the different sciences taught in the spirit world ? And what 
is the system of education there ? 37 

ARTICLE VII. 

On what general conditions of life here depend the soul's highest 

13 



14 CONTENTS. 

good in the spirit life ? or does the soul's highest good in the 
spirit life depend on the conditions of life here? 41 

ARTICLE VIII. 

How is it possible that God should be both a God of justice and a 
God of mercy ? 48 

ARTICLE IX. 

Why does every nation have some idea of a future life ? and do 
different nations entertain similar views regarding a future life? 55 

ARTICLE X. 
Where was the Garden of Eden ? 59 

ARTICLE XL 

Wherein were Christ and his disciples different from other men ?. . 67 

ARTICLE XII. 

What is the condition and redemption, in spirit life, of the one who 
was a wrong-doer in earth life — say, of a murderer? 72 

ARTICLE XIII. 

In the spirit life where is the home of the soul? Jesus said: " In 
my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place 
for you, that where I am ye may be also." Where is that 
place— the home of the soul ? 77 

ARTICLE XIV. 

Are spirits — departed souls — permitted to visit other worlds than 
this, and to know aught of their conditions and of the happen- 
ings there ? ; 83 

ARTICLE XV. 

Is there any real benefit received from prayer, or does it merely 
produce a state of mental resignation ? 90 

ARTICLE XVI. 
What is inspiration ? 95 



ARTICLE I. 



QUESTION. 



How are what are termed Fire Mediums able to 
handle fire without being burned ? 

ANSWER. 

IT is the correlation of forces. Spirit is a force. 
Matter is a force-. Both are expressions of life. 

The dominant force is always the native force. But 
the spirit force is the intelligent force ; that which 
thinks, reasons, observes, reflects. It is the will force 
which governs the matter force. 

Now if enough will power, or force, be concen- 
trated upon any part of a medium it can overcome the 
native action of matter — for it is a superior or ruling 
force. 

Fire is one natural action of the force matter, and 
to be burned, or changed in form by fire, is a corre- 
sponding action of matter. 

But fire, and the action of fire, is a delegated force 
as differencing from a superior force — a force caused 
and perpetuated by intelligent force. 

Now for the face or hands of a medium to be 
burned by a flame is, of course, a very small action of 
a very great force, or possibility, as it exists in nature. 

15 



1 6 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

Do you not see that if the intelligent force of the 
will, concentrated upon that small point of action of a 
delegated or native force, be superior in power to the 
power of the native force which perpetuates continu- 
ally its equilibrium, it cannot act? (A native force 
may be stated to be that action which will always, un- 
der like conditions, produce like results.) 

The natural action of the fire upon the flesh is sus- 
pended — held in check — by action of will exerted 
through the flesh : not the will of the medium, but 
the will of the combined intelligences acting through 
her. If she were afraid, or had no faith in their power — 
believed it would burn in spite of their efforts — their 
will could not act ; her will would be antagonistic to 
theirs, and render her an active instead of a passive 
agent ; and probably enough will force could not be 
concentrated to make power enough to overcome 
both her mental force and the native action of the 
flame. 

Hence it is obvious why a jar, any sudden or start- 
ling action of the audience, might cause her to be 
burned : it would cause her mental force to resume its 
normal active condition, and her passive receptibility 
would be destroyed. Thus the will power acting upon 
her would be interfered with, for it was acting through 
her as an agent, a conveyance. 

It is the same principle as that an iron ring may 
have its adhesion of particles temporarily destroyed to 
join it within another iron ring. Only the iron ring is 
the easier thing to do, because it contains no spirit 
force, or intelligence, to be rendered passive, or that 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 1 7 

may interfere with the performance through the action 
of outside influences. 

You will understand by the comparison to the ring 
that I do not mean the flame was made incapable of 
burning something else, but merely unable to burn that 
portion of the medium's body protected by the will 
power of those acting through her ; because those par- 
ticles of her body rendered temporarily non-combust- 
ible by will force concentrated there. 

I do not think the terms magnetism or electricity so 
well explain the philosophy as will force. 

Of course the will acts through the media of elec- 
tricity or magnetism as it ever does — but neither mag- 
netism nor electricity is the directing power ; and the 
force which I have called will, which is the intelligence 
in every individual, is the first cause, hence the mov- 
ing, acting power. 

I think a sufficient answer to the theory that the 
controls coated their medium's face or hands with a 
covering of magnetism or electricity is in the fact that a 
magnet itself may be burned by fire until it lose its 
magnetic power ; that any most highly electrized ma- 
chine may be burned when so electrized. More : elec- 
tricity itself may burn. 

It must be a force superior to this that can prevent 
the natural action of fire upon an object. 

Perhaps the controls themselves may not have 
known how they did it — that is, the philosophy of it. 
Or they may have known that magnetism and electric- 
ity are conveyances of will force, and have attributed 
to the carriage the moving power of the horse ! 



1 8 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

To resume : The intelligence or will which promotes 
and permits all the actions of the forces of matter, 
according to laws, is a diffused force, just sufficient to 
keep the matter forces in motion. Or, matter has dele- 
gated for its use just sufficient power to fulfill its own 
laws. Hence a concentration of sufficient will power 
at any given point may break through this round of 
material action. It is thus that God may upon occa- 
sion act without, or seemingly contrary to, the very laws 
of his material universe, yet in accordance with an- 
other superior law which he has ordained. And his 
more advanced children, as they learn of this superior 
law, are permitted to use the same according to their 
own possibilities, which is according to their knowledge. 
No restrictions are put upon intelligences save law. 
As knowledge of law is acquired, will force may act 
according to law. 



ARTICLE II. 



QUESTION. 



Why do spirits, when controlling a medium, so frequently 
compel the medium to " take on " the feelings and 
sufferings which THEY last experienced in THEIR 
former earth form ? 

ANSWER. 

WHAT you term matter is only one of the forms 
in which spirit — or better, the principle of life 
— manifests itself. It is the most real of all forms to 
you who dwell in the realms of such manifestations, of 
course, because the most tangible — because, in short, 
it is that of which you are a part, a fraction, a unit. 
When you escape from that form to one more con- 
densed, refined, you may wonder how anything so 
coarse, thin, vapory as what you call matter could 
seem solid, tangible, real ! 

I am aware that I am reversing terms to your mind 
— you wonder that I apply the word condensed to any- 
thing so diffusive as you have regarded spirit. Well, 
it is your misapprehension, and a common one. (As 
good an illustration as I can give to your mind, per- 
haps, is, that evolving the form spirit from the form 
matter is something like separating gold from the 

19 



20 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

quartz, etc., in which it is embedded; when you once 
have it fine and perfect gold, how much more solid, 
condensed, than when mingled in the hard ore with the 
flint and quartz; more solid because more condensed. 
It can be drawn out, spread, molded, as the coarse, 
brittle quartz will not endure. It is more pliable, cer- 
tainly; but pliability suggests density in its very action.) 

Now as regards your question: Why do spirits, when 
controlling a medium, so frequently compel the medium 
to " take on " the feelings and sufferings which they 
last experienced in their former earth form ? 

// is nerve action! Simply this. It is not volun- 
tary mental direction of the controlling agent at all: to 
the contrary, it is often as amazing — as unexpected, 
frequently, if one unused to control — to the director 
(or spirit, as you say) as it is distressing to the medium. 

Sometimes it so embarrasses the control as to ren- 
der it impossible to operate. 

Not that the spirit feels again those pains and symp- 
toms that the medium feels through sympathetic nerve 
contact, but he is embarrassed at the effect which he 
involuntarily produces by his contact, and which he 
may not understand. 

Now you are wondering at the words " nerve 
action " and " sympathetic nerve contact," as applied 
to your idea of a spirit. Nerve action as applied to 
your earthly body would not surprise you at all, how- 
ever. 

Now why? What is nerve action? Do you know? 

You know there are certain parts of the human 
body which are called the nerves, and you know that 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 21 

these nerve lines flash their intelligences quicker than 
thought from all parts of the human frame to the 
brain. 

But the science of their action you do not know 
any more than you know how your own brain acts. 

Well, call this action electricity. (It is as good a 
term as any.) It is a transmitted action, is it not ? 

It is conveyed, passed along, from one part to an- 
other of your frame by contact of part to part — of 
" atom " to " atom." If one of your limbs were dis- 
membered, then cut or pinched, your brain would re- 
ceive no intelligence of it by nerve action, not even if 
the dismembered limb were laid flesh to flesh upon 
your living body. Why? The little nerves that sur- 
geons trace would still be traceable in that cut-off 
limb ? Ah ! do you begin to perceive the spirit nerves 
now? 

The spirit limb cannot be cut off. Where the ma- 
terial limb is removed its nerve channels have lost the 
force which acted through them. But has the force 
ceased to act, to exist ? 

You cannot tell, with your obtuse, material sense, of 
course. But it has not ; and its involuntary action is 
suspended just where it left off. (This is hard to ex- 
plain to your understanding.) There is a sympathy, 
you would say, between the spirit and the body that it 
inhabits — it can feel the pains of the body, you would 
say. But the body of itself has no pains! This sym- 
pathy there is sympathetic nerve action — sympathetic 
spirit action of the nerves as directed by the percep- 
tions, understanding, etc. 



22 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

Now when the spirit is removed from the body of 
course such action of sympathy ceases ; but the spirit 
nerves retain the impression that was last made upon 
them (just as you will remember your friend's face as 
you last saw it, and your mind will retain the memory 
till you again see it and a new impression eradicates 
the old) and when the spirit body is brought in con- 
tact again with another material body it transmits 
such impressions as it still retains upon the sym- 
pathetic nerves in the living flesh, as a picture is trans- 
mitted to the sensitive plate in the camera by the 
action of light. 

Light! Electricity! the terms are synonymous; and 
electricity, nerve action, are two terms that may con- 
vey one idea, — not that nerve action conveys as much 
as electricity, however — it is merely an action of elec- 
tricity. Electricity, like light, works on all, through 
all, over all : two effects from one cause. 

" Why do these spirit nerves retain their impres- 
sions?" you ask. "Why do they not pass away as the 
spirit goes on living and exercising new functions in a 
new form of existence?" 

That is precisely it : because it is a new form of 
existence through which the spirit nerves and percep- 
tions now act. 

Electricity acts according to the forms in which it 
is used, according to the channels through which it is 
conveyed. 

The possibilities of the spirit are illimitable ; those 
possibilities are utilized according to the forms through 
which it is manifested. The old possibilities of the 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 23 

spirit nerves are no longer used or needed in the new 
form, hence they are suspended — dropped just where 
they were left off using, as a workman drops his tools 
in a shop where he leaves his task, and the tools 
remain as he left them till he or another workman 
picks them up ; so with the spirit nerves, they are 
implements through which the spirit mind acts, and 
when that mind comes in contact — " en rapport " — 
with another mind in a mortal frame the mortal mind 
takes cognizance involuntarily of the situation of the 
workshop whose tools are about to operate upon his 
mortal state in place of his own native tools. 

Because, of course, when a spirit comes back to 
control a mortal frame, or use a mortal brain, he must 
use the same spirit possibilities, or tools, that he used 
in earth life, not the same set of implements, the new 
possibilities that he now has use for in his spiritual 
existence. 

After awhile, and as he uses these faculties through 
other organisms, these old conditions pass away — he 
changes the positions of his tools, I may say, as he 
uses them. The old picture upon his spirit nerves is 
obliterated, and as no new mortal impressions can be 
formed of pain or pleasure he ceases to impress any 
picture of mortality upon a medium, because the con- 
ditions cease to exist. Also, if he understand how, he 
may exert his will to overcome such effect upon the 
spirit nerves of the medium. 

Or, after time enough, he may drop these old possi- 
bilities entirely by the acquisition of new ones. 

A spirit thus advanced cannot control a medium to 



24 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

give the bodily manifestations that one who retains 
the earth possibilities may do ; he cannot control a 
medium to unconsciousness without the help of inter- 
mediate spirits, who hold the functions or spirit nerves 
which control the body, while he operates the mind, 
the thought possibilities. 

Ah ! how little can I make you understand of a 
subject so vast, so intricate. 

* * * * * * 



ARTICLE III. 



QUESTION. 
What is Evolution? 

ANSWER. 

IT is spirit conception thrown off from the mind of 
God working upward, as the seed planted in the 
soil works out its possibilities toward reproducing the 
prototype of the plant from whence it came. 

The ever-radiating possibilities from the All-pervad- 
ing mind, constantly acting upon the forces, fixed and 
fastened by immutable laws, must yet, like all things 
else in the universe, be subject to the law. 

Having foreseen and ordained laws sufficient to 
control all that is, the Omnipotent mind must confine 
itself to the conditions of the self-imposed law, else 
God becomes the destroyer of his own creation. 

All means having been ordained, and all life brought 
forth as a revelation of his own power and glory, it is im- 
possible to conceive that his will can ever come in con- 
flict with his own plan, since his wisdom is omnipotent. 

The forces of creation are so balanced and harmo- 
nized that they always tend from seeming chaos and 
confusion to great glory and magnificent exhibition of 
power and wisdom. 

25 



26 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

No human mind loses anything by the radiations 
that it throws off — the thoughts that it evolves out of 
itself only increase its own power to think. 

Yet every good or great thought that is dropped 
where it can take root in another mind may be helped 
on by that new mind to a larger and better conception 
of itself: be again thrown off into another receptive 
mind and again increased in power and beauty, and so 
on indefinitely. 

It is only a simple thought, thrown off from a work- 
ing mind, yet it becomes vast and perhaps of power to 
move and sway many souls after enough successive 
stages of progression through mental activities. 

I have taken this thought of which I speak, for as 
good an illustration, perhaps, as I can find of what you 
may call evolution — the workings of the spirit upward. 

For this is a purely spiritual thing of which we 
speak; there is nothing in animal or vegetable life 
strictly analogous to it. Still, for aught we know, this 
upward working spirit may begin as a life principle 
away down in the lowest forms of vegetable life, and so 
on upward through lower to higher animals, till it 
reaches man — there is nothing apparent to contradict 
this theory, and much to support it; yetw^ cannot trace 
it — this individual spirit — till we find it as it first begins 
its workings in the human babe. 

Then, indeed, may we trace its development and 
accumulations of force within itself, through its career 
in earth life; mark its evolutions into the next sphere or 
condition of existence; witness its increasing energies 
and abilities, through new and generally better and 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 2? 

more favorable conditions for development; mark 
again, after it has exhausted for itself the second con- 
dition of existence, its new evolutions into angel, and 
again after time (which loses its limit to mental con- 
sciousness now) into higher angel, and higher and 
higher — dependent only upon the height to which we 
have ourselves attained, whether the ladder reaches 
in its successive rounds on upward to Infinity itself, or 
whether the God-mind to which we owe our existence 
and conditions of existence is also ever progressing, 
and thus receding from us, we have no means of deter- 
mining. 

As you judge a man by his actions, and what you 
can perceive of the moral and mental conditions 
through which his actions work, so can we judge of the 
Omnipotent only by what we can perceive of his laws, 
and of the tendencies of the higher types of his crea- 
tion. 

There is much argument in the spheres, and much 
to support either theory, that the Infinite mind keeps 
steadily in advance of all his myriad train of followers 
by ever-acccumulating force and development within 
himself, just as we develop or evolve and roll onward; 
and contrary: that his mind is fixed, immutable, un- 
changeable, undeveloping, self-sustaining, as he has 
fixed the suns in their systems. 

But it seems to me these arguments are not profit- 
able to dwell upon. The most desirable things for us 
to find out are the things most conducive to our most 
symmetrical and perfect unfolding in the stage of ex- 
istence in which we are. 



28 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

If we can only take up from the soil in which we 
are growing the attributes most necessary to our indi- 
vidual and peculiar development, when we make our 
evolutions, there will be no looking backward, no with- 
ering blight of regret to outgrow, no mildew of preju- 
dice to wipe out, no pains of conscience to endure, when 
we look into the clearer mirror of a new existence. 

And the one who thus gains the most increasing 
energy, with the least to retard his upward tendencies, 
leaves far in the wake those who take with them men- 
tal burthens from one stage of existence to the next. 

Truly the kingdom of heaven is within you; and 
never hope or expect to gain it without the circle of 
your own individual spirit. 

He who is miserable and complaining on earth will 
be miserable and complaining in his next stage of 
existence until he has developed a self-poise that is 
self-sustaining. And he can never progress beyond that 
next stage nor into all of its best conditions, prepara- 
tory" for the new evolutions of spirit life, until he has 
developed such a self-poise. 

The successive developments being now purely 
spiritual, of course the evolutions depend upon his 
mental (or soul) health, as on earth it is determined by 
the condition of his body. 

Labor, then, in your earth life for that mental poise 
of peaceful equanimity and loving charity and helpful- 
ness toward others that may give you even on earth 
that state of heavenly kingdom that will afterward ele- 
vate you to a more rapid evolution onward through the 
spheres. 



ARTICLE IV. 



QUESTION. 

What is the Will? 

ANSWER. 

WHAT is God ? He is the Will of the universe, 
as he is the Light of the world. That which 
can create. 

The light, the warmth, the electricity, the life of the 
world, are the emanations from that which creates and 
perpetuates. 

Well, every human spirit is a child of the Father in 
a spiritual sense, as much as the child of the mother's 
womb is body of her body. The spirit of your child 
may not be akin to your own spirit so much as may be 
that of another child in the remotest parts of the earth. 
But you and your child and all children are akin to the 
Father in the spirit. The possibilities of the manifesta- 
tions of the First Cause are illimitable, innumerable ; 
and no manifestations of intelligence in the universe, 
however diverse, but have likeness and are related to 
That Which works over all, through all, in all. For were 
any not possessed of the spiritual essence of the Crea- 
tor, there would be no life in them. 

2 9 



30 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 



This spiritual essence is the intelligent Will of the 
universe. That from which all life comes. 

Hence it is obvious that all intelligence in life is pos- 
sessed of will. It is the Will in the individual spirit 
that makes that spirit what it is — that makes it exist at 
all : it is the life. 

Because it is life itself it is so little recognized or 
comprehended by the possessor in the first stages of 
existence. 

The growth of intelligence is like a little seed 
planted in the ground ; as it puts forth one shoot after 
another, sensing in turn the circumstances under 
which it pushes upward (which is its soil) and the im- 
pressions which it receives from contact with other life 
about it (which are the air and moisture that help or 
retard its growth) the young, struggling shoot of 
humanity is too busy sensing its own evolutions to 
pause to feel or strive to understand the will within 
itself that pushes it on and on. 

Gradually, as it reaches more advanced stages of 
existence, it begins to realize the sensation / am — it 
perceives dimly that by force of its own inalienable life 
it may cause. 

It feels, as it senses more and more its own selfhood, 
that it may affect other individuals less developed in 
consciousness of individuality, of power, of will. 

Certain emanations of will, conscious or unconscious, 
of an individual are what has been termed animal mag- 
netism. 

One of its directed emanations you have called mes- 
merism. (These are emanations acting upon other 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 3 1 

wills.) When the emanations of the great Over Will 
acts through or upon inanimate things it is electricity, 
it is light, it is heat, it is motion, it is force, in differing 
effects. But it is always The Will that is working 
through them. 

You say there is electricity in your hair when it 
crackles as you brush it. It is the life, the emanations 
of the will of your spirit, that makes your body alive, 
that causes it to crackle. Dead hair will not do so, 
unless, possibly, it may if it has been worn long enough 
upon a living head to have imbibed these living emana- 
tions. 

Thus we may say, that which is alive is that which 
possesses will force to cause or produce effects. 

That which is devoid of life may be caused to act, 
but has no power to act within itself. 

Thus there are the two great primal forces. The 
Cosmos Force, which is the force of undeveloped unintel- 
ligent matter ; it is a force that is caused by action of 
the Odic Force ; it is a force that is delegated, that 
could not exist without a cause. The Odic Force is the 
force which can cause, hence it is a force of intelligent 
will, of reason, a force of conscious spirit action. 

The action of the Odic Force is all we know of God. 

But remember, we as the direct spiritual offspring of 
God possess, each one of us, an indestructible germ of 
this Odic Force, this will power, a germ of which every 
seed is typical, inasmuch as each perfect seed bears 
within itself all the possibilities manifested by the par- 
ent from whence it was produced, and which possibili- 
ties need only time and proper conditions to develop. 



32 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

The tree loses nothing by the seeds which naturally 
fall ; they are merely excesses of its own vitality. So 
we may suppose the great I AM loses nothing of force, 
or possibilities, or power, by endowing us, his spiritual 
children, continually being born into the world, with 
this will force, or by constantly perpetuating the Cos- 
mos Force, which he has caused. 

So far as we know we differ in the possibilities of 
our spirit nature from God most in this : Not one of 
us can create a germ of life — can create one atom of 
the Odic Force, which is behind all force. 

The earthly father and mother may create the other 
parts of their child, but the life germ comes directly, 
we suppose, from God. Although the parent may 
affect or make impressions upon the unborn will of the 
child, as by mesmerism grown wills are affected, or as 
impressions are made upon the yielding mind in child- 
hood, yet no impression can be made which may not in 
time be eradicated, and the individual spirit or will be- 
come pure and true to the great principles of purity 
and truth as they exist in the mind of God. As they 
are crystalized and polished, and made more perfect, 
they resemble more and more the Father, as drops of 
water are like the fountain from whence they fall. 



ARTICLE V. 



QUESTION. 



Is the sun the great center of the electric forces of its sys- 
tem; and of this will force as well, a center? 

ANSWER. 

THOSE belonging to earth have to do but with 
the laws and the forces of earth, save so far as 
a knowledge of outside influences may further their 
perceptions of the infinite love and wisdom which rules 
all things. Your world is influenced and held to its 
action by forces of the sun as a controlling motor. 

The highest laws of mechanics are used in the con- 
structive mechanism of the universe. 

As a crude illustration, compare the universe to a 
watch ; your solar system may be compared to one of 
the wheels of the watch, its many planets the cogs in the 
wheel ; the sun the center upon which all revolve. 
But remember it is only one wheel amid many — neces- 
sarily, of course, perfect in its motions to the finest 
breadth of space and the most minute span of time, 
that it may do its alloted work as a factor in God's in- 
finite plan — yet it is no more than one simple wheel, as 
compared to the whole watch ; and the finger which 
turns the key to the whole is God's. 
3 33 



34 • LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

The will force is in God and with God. That 
which is before and back of everything. His will is 
communicated to all, making each what it is. 

But if you ask me where the will force centers — if 
its center is in the sun — I can only reply, the center of 
all will force dwells in God. He is the fount of life 
from which all life flows, and his the controlling energy 
of all things which possess energy or force of any kind. 

Each thing in the universe, from the smallest to the 
greatest, is endowed by him and of him with the en- 
ergy or forces needed to its work in the place where he 
has appointed it. 

If your earth borrows from its sun, the sun in like 
manner receives from God that which it is necessary 
that the sun should lend. You, nor I, nor aught of 
the greatest planet, hath of its own ; all is of God, and 
to his glory alone we are. But each individual soul is 
superior to the grandest planet in this, that it is an 
inheritor of the Divine mind. 

Broadcast are scattered the seeds of life through all 
the universe. Each seed contains the power of devel- 
opment — of evolution — within itself: it is the principle 
of which it is. Indestructible are these seeds. 

Finding proper conditions, they begin their evolu- 
tions, ever accumulating forces as they roll on toward 
eternity. 

It is like a boy making a mammoth snow-ball by 
rolling it in the open field ; every time he turns it over 
it grows larger in proportion to its own size. So the 
faculties of mind, through each successive stage, gain 
from that through which they pass in proportion to 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 35 

their own development. After mind becomes man 
it has reached a development where memory may be 
retained, as well as a dim perception of the God-mind 
from which it sprang. 

And, strangely enough, it is only then that rebellion 
against God occurs ; in this transitional state of the 
soul, it is as if, feeling the spiritual quickening before 
the birth into the true heirship of the sons of God, the 
soul were loth to leave its slow, crude condition of 
mere cosmos force, wherein its odic faculties have lain 
dormant. 

Nothing below man rebels at its appointments. 
And nothing above man (for earth-bound spirits are not 
above him) rebels, but delights and loves to do and dis- 
cover the will of God. 

This is why God so loves the world — so pities it 
with infinite compassion — when man in that state first 
struggles with his dim perceptions of good and evil. 

This is why he sent his prophets, and his Messiah, 
and why he still sends his spirits of light, and will con- 
tinue to send them till all of mankind be redeemed — 
that is, become fully developed into the perception and 
joy of being children of God. 

This is why there is nothing in all the spheres so 
gratifying to souls of advanced spirits as being able 
to minister unto the souls of poor earth-bound ones 
(whether in earthly form or out of it), and lead them 
onward toward their glorious heirship into the kingdom 
of heaven. (You know Christ said, " The kingdom of 
heaven is within you") 

This is why you should love God, and love to do 



36 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

his will, who first loved you — loved you infinitely more 
with compassion than the most tender mother loves 
and guides her tottling babe. 

This is why you should love your neighbor as your- 
self, to help him and do him no wrong, because thus 
you advance your own soul into that kingdom of love 
and peace which is not of earth. 

This is why the witness of Christ's divinity is true, 
because of his knowledge of these eternal truths at a 
time when men on the earth were struggling in greater 
darkness and ignorance than now. And when the spir- 
its of men, freed from their earthly form, yet found few 
rays of light to lead them. 

It is true that he taught no new thing in his com- 
mandments, and the substance of the same thought is 
taught by all prophets of any people ; neither can any 
spirit bring a newer or truer thought to man than the 
one incomprehensible, immeasurable thought of God's 
love to all that he hath created, and that we should 
love him, and love to do his will, that we may grow 
ever to be more like him. 

As we acquire of his nature, so may we acquire of 
his knowledge, and thus of his power. 



ARTICLE VI. 



QUESTION. 






Are the different sciences taught in the spirit world? 
And what is the system of education there? 

ANSWER. 

EVERYTHING is taught in the spirit world that 
anybody knows. The law of diffusion is clearly 
recognized. It is fully known that he who has any 
real light of knowledge in him must give it off, where 
it will also benefit others, before he will be able to ab- 
sorb any new or greater light himself. But what does 
an individual really know? That which some kind of 
an actual experience has taught him to be a fact. 

Thus, what one spirit receives by way of education 
from another spirit he must go to work and prove in 
some way to be a truth before he can teach it to any 
one. Not that he doubts the truth of his instructor, 
but any truth is much like a prism — its shape depends 
upon the side from which you view it. One must see 
it from one's own point of view before one can accu- 
rately describe it. 

The different sciences are taught. Yes ; art is 
taught. Music is taught. Many things are taught 

37 



38 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

which earth minds could not comprehend. You have 
no earthly language in which to convey such spiritual 
ideas. 

But what is most eagerly sought after and taught 
are the laws of spiritual development. Every spirit, as 
soon as he realizes that he is really to live for ever, 
wants to advance ; as soon as the wonders and beauties 
of God's great laws burst upon his comprehension he 
searches on and on, with a longing and love that is 
never appeased though constantly fed. 

And as he goes on he learns to transmit in some 
way every ray of light that he absorbs. 

The sciences, or profundity of the laws taught, de- 
pend upon the spiritual plane where one is located, 
and the systems of education differ accordingly. But 
there are perhaps no what you would call systems of 
education in the spiritual world, save where children 
are taught. 

There are centers of education for all sorts of 
branches of knowledge on every spiritual plane, unless 
among very low, earth-bound spirits, who neither 
realize their condition nor desire to advance it; but 
these centers of education differ according to the de- 
velopment of the plane upon which they are situated. 
All is adapted to the needs and requirements of the 
plane. You must not attempt to teach a child geometry 
before he has learned arithmetic. 

But there is no compulsion about any education. 
Attraction governs everything. The spirit who has a 
great longing after music will be attracted by the 
melodious harmonies of some musical center upon his 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 39 

plane of development. The one who earnestly desires 
to obtain knowledge of scientific laws will naturally 
gravitate to a center where such laws are discussed and 
expounded. 

When he has absorbed as much as he feels he can 
hold he will in turn go out to prove the laws, per- 
haps to make some new discoveries. As soon as he 
has accomplished anything he hastens to communicate 
it where it is needed, then back to some great educa- 
tional center again, or drawn by attraction, may be, to 
some individual, more highly-developed spirit, who as 
eagerly gives as he receives. 

Thus, you see, the " general system of education" 
is one of attraction and diffusion. Everything is 
taught that anybody knows, limited only by the re- 
ceiver's ability to absorb. These centers of education 
are kept up by those who are constantly going there to 
exchange experiences and diffuse their ideas. They 
are, in a sense, the tutors, those who come to absorb 
the pupils. 

The tutors as well as the pupils are constantly 
changing, and this but makes it the more varied, in- 
structive and interesting. It never grows wearisome 
nor monotonous — never falls into one particular chan- 
nel of thought, as in earth schools, but is free, liberal 
and progressive, as is the realm of spirit itself. 

And the widest toleration for differing views — the 
most thoughtful consideration of adverse opinions — is 
always given and received. It is for this reason, per- 
haps, that you may receive so many differing opinions 
through spirit communications. 



40 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

A spirit is not afraid to present any side of a subject 
that seems to him true, nor to tell anything which he 
has experienced to be a fact. Yet when I say teachers 
are constantly changing I do not mean in a day, a 
week, a year, of your time. They remain as long as 
the attraction of giving or receiving holds them. 

Several may combine and work for long periods to 
perfect some invention, to prove some new discovery, 
to discover some missing link in a chain of laws ; but 
when any attraction which holds the mind loses its 
force through completion, the ever-busy spirit must on 
to new attractions and new fields of discovery and 
advancement. 

There is no such thing as monotony or weariness 
among enlightened spirits. 

Can you comprehend the joy and exultation of a 
mind that never wearies and never rests ? 



ARTICLE VIL 



QUESTION. 



On what general conditions of life here depend the soul's 
highest good in the spirit life? or, does the soul's 
highest good in the spirit life depend upon the con- 
ditions of earth life ? 

ANSWER. 

THE soul's highest good in the spirit life depends 
upon the development to which it attains in earth 
life. Most certainly it depends upon the conditions of 
the earth life, but not, perhaps, as you may understand 
those conditions. 

Man is three-fold in his nature. (This is an old 
truth, but a truth of any kind is eternal — never begin- 
ning and never ending; a truth old is yet ever new.) 
In man's three-fold development we find what is called 
body, soul or mind, and spirit. 

It is not difficult for any intelligent, watchful mind 
on earth to observe the reactive influences of mind and 
body. The best health and development of the one 
tends to the best health and development of the other. 

But there is a greater fact which too often earthly 
minds fail to perceive at all. This is that both the 
body and mind of a man (or woman) may receive a 

41 



42 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 



very high degree of development while yet the spirit 
remains comparatively dormant — its development being 
very little advanced by all its earthly career. 

Yet there is this: If the soul — the mental powers — 
has become highly cultivated and enlarged there are 
always great spiritual possibilities. It shows the 
strength of the cosmos force that is in him; and where 
we see evidences of a cosmos force we know that in just 
proportion to its properties the odic principle, or inner 
force, must exist. 

This is a mysterious thing, and the saddest thing in 
all earth life : that a man may have mental powers pol 
ished, cultivated and capable till they are almost God- 
like in their power and mastering grasp upon the 
science and laws of nature, upon minds which are 
less developed than his own, upon his own bodily 
appetites and pleasures, and yet have less spiritual per- 
ception and development than the child who carries her 
apron full of flowers, her sympathetic eyes, her loving 
smiles, to some uncouth, bed-ridden unfortunate ! 

But you must not judge the man. His own spirit 
is yet small who dares to do that. 

What earthly mind, by looking upon its fellow, can 
tell what may have been the environments, the crush- 
ing disappointments, the unfed hungerings for spiritual 
necessities — yes, and the pre-natal influences which 
have left its poor spirit room for so little development 
— which may have so stunted or warped it from its 
ultimate possibilities? The one great in spirit is ready 
to weep with compassion over the struggles, the sor- 
rows, the stumbling, at the sinfulness of such a low- 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 43 

spirited nature; but it never disdains, rejects, or relishes 
its sufferings. It longs to give plenteously of the light 
which it has been permitted to receive, and has its 
patience whetted by the sorrowfulness of the fact, that 
the other, so enshrouded in darkness, is unable to 
receive. 

The soul's highest good in the spirit life, then, does 
depend upon the conditions of its earth life. But woe 
and alas! it cannot make its own conditions of life 
any more than the babe can choose of whom it shall 
be born. 

But every spirit (as soon as it wakens to a percep- 
tion of itself and its needs) may modify or advance its 
conditions. This is purely a spiritual matter. But 
each of the three-fold natures in man are typical. As 
the muscles of the arm are strengthened, hardened and 
developed by constant use so is the spirit advanced by 
its own efforts in the perception and rendering of 
spiritual things. 

I do not mean now what you term " spiritualism " 
by spiritual things. I mean by its loyalty and truth to 
itself — to its conception of what is highest, and best 
and purest in itself ; by sustaining itself by prayer, by 
the perception of God's spirit in nature as in man; by 
the influx of strength that flows to it from eyes that 
look into its own with gratitude; by the consciousness 
of its own unwavering integrity of purpose; by any of 
the various ways by which through different minds the 
spiritual man is developed. 

So when you ask " on what general conditions of 
earth life depend the soul's highest good in spirit 



44 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 



life ? " our answer must be, the conditions depend upon 
the mental status of the spirit which is to be developed. 

The conditions of life which would advance the de- 
velopment of one spirit would retard another. 

As the earthly mind can only find expression 
through the earthly body, so the spirit can only find ex- 
pression through the soul or mind. Hence it is that 
the greatest mind gives evidences of the greatest 
spirit — when it shall have become developed. No very 
great, powerful, well-balanced mind ever found expres- 
sion through a feeble, misshapen, imperfectly developed 
body; and no sweet, pure, inspiring spirit ever found its 
way through an ill-balanced, stubborn, arrogant, selfish, 
undisciplined mind. Thus you see the three-fold 
nature of man must develop in harmony in earth life 
to reach its greatest perfection there, and thus, when 
transplanted, to be in its " highest good " in spirit life. 

Since this so seldom is, it is little wonder there is 
no more spiritual perception in the world. 

It must wait for a greater development of the 
world. What one generation has learned advances 
the next. When man's mental powers have grasped 
the facts of what bodily conditions are best to his 
mind's peace and enlargement, and when he has sub- 
jected the body to the dominion of the mind, then will 
the perfection and perception of the spirit break 
through and govern both. 

All Christian people know what are the fruits of the 
body and what are the fruits of the spirit. Let them 
practice what they profess to believe regarding the 
spirit. 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 45 

And let those to whom the evidences of spirit re- 
turn are more convincing, as to the truth of a future 
life, than all the spiritual truths expounded by Jesus of 
Nazareth, be careful lest they should become as in- 
tolerant and bigoted as any intolerance and bigotry of 
creeds which they affect to despise. 

Let them not tolerate, in any sense, license in place 
of the law of morality in their own lives and purposes. 
Let them be just, charitable and generous to all mankind. 

Let them so live in the light of the evidences of a 
sure future life as to convince, by the unselfishness and 
integrity of their lives and the loving helpfulness of 
their purposes, even skeptics that they are upheld by 
a conviction higher than the highest morality of the 
most cultivated mind, which depends for strength and 
sustenance merely upon its own powers of reflection 
and observation. 

So the highest development which the spirit can 
attain in earth life is wrought through the good which 
it is able to accomplish in the world for humanity, the 
uplifts which it can in any way give toward a more 
spiritualized existence. 

It may be through inventions, which economize 
labor and give more room for the cultivation of mind, 
in place of the hard, unending toil for bread. It may 
be in art, which enlarges the perceptions and often 
teaches lessons which no words could do. It may be 
in science, which opens up the labyrinths of different 
laws and truths to an astonished world. It may be in 
any way that assists mankind to a higher plane than 
that to which his brute nature would consign him. 



46 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

But every person has it not, in the possibilities of 
their nature, to even approach such results. Very 
true. But every person has it within him, if he will, to 
be considerate, just and kind, and thus he helps, thus 
he sustains those at greater heights than himself, who 
are burning out their bodies to furnish fuel for their 
mind's action. Thus the father and the mother im- 
press the seeds of righteousness in the mind of the un- 
born babe, and afterward teach the law of love to their 
children. People of the world are accustomed to at- 
tribute too much respect to the merits of the martyr. 
He or she who makes a martyr of him or her self to the 
whims or selfishness of another, or to the exactions of 
a cause, is thought to be great in devotion and unself- 
ish in purpose. The fact is such an one is weak. No 
human soul has a right to exhaust or absorb all the 
strength of any other soul; and the man or woman 
who allows him or her self to be thus leeched upon 
merely lacks strength of purpose or of perception to 
throw off the incubus. He or she also wrongs the one 
whom he or she attempts to this extent to support. 

You would not think of strengthening one limb by 
bandaging it to the other. You would know that both 
would weaken and neither gain. It is just the same 
folly for one mind to attempt to carry another — for 
one body to absorb into the selfishness of its own life 
the strength of another. Exchange of love, exchange 
of sympathy, and a helping hand to one who is stum- 
bling or in distress, is a development of both soul and 
spirit, one that is reciprocal. But he who is able to 
stand— who is so selfish that he is willing to take from 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 47 

another's strength — let him stand or fall ; even the fall 
may teach him something. 

Let each individual have an independence of 
thought, purpose and action that leaves him always 
erect upon the lonely mountain top, above the jeers 
and tumults of a selfish, jostling crowd, and reflecting 
all the rays of light that fall from God's hand upon him. 

Let him allow no human soul the right to make his 
whole happiness or his whole misery. That should lie 
between iris spirit and its maker. It is the same with 
a cause. Every cause is unjust which would suck out 
the very life of its adherents. No one thing in life 
should be suffered to the exclusion of all others. There 
are many good and developing things in the world, and 
the apples of none are forbidden. Take, eat and grow ! 

Is your question answered ? Let each individual so 
adjust himself amid his environments as will produce 
the best three-fold development possible to him. 

Yet let not him of the one talent be confounded ; let 
him remember of him to whom much is given much is 
also required. 

The greater is as dependent in earth life for his 
daily needs upon the lesser as is the lesser dependent 
for his mental stimulus upon the greater. 

No one has just cause to feel proud. The spirit 
most symmetrically developed and polished by the 
frictions of its earthly career is best fitted to enjoy 
and profit from spirit life ; hence such a spirit can go 
on more rapidly toward its " highest good." 

What is its highest good but to approach more 
nearly its maker? 



ARTICLE VIII. 



QUESTION. 

How is it possible that God should be both a God of 
justice and a God of mercy ? 

ANSWER. 

GOD is just in that he visits no exceptional punish- 
ment upon any soul which he has created. He 
is just in that he exacts of all that they shall, and has 
fixed immutable laws by which each individual must, 
work upward to his own salvation. Having fixed from 
the beginning these laws, which are exact, equitable 
and all-comprising, covering all the frailties and ignor- 
ances and blindness of humanity, he has clearly mani- 
fested his impartial justice in forming his laws so 
immutable that there can be no evading, ignoring or 
overstepping them by any one. They must be fulfilled, 
their conditions must be complied with, to the simplest 
factor. 

No suffering, prayer, protestation or regrets — noth- 
ing — can exempt the one who has outraged the law 
from paying the penalty of that law. God shows no 
favoritisms. To each individual has he given perfect 
free-agency both to transgress and to suffer, if he will ; 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 49 

but if he transgresses, suffer he must, and continue to 
suffer till he works himself, through his own efforts 
and the knowledge which the pain of suffering gives 
him, above and beyond the liability to fall into the 
conditions which cause suffering. 

It is true that no one has freedom of choice of 
whether he shall exist or not ; neither has he choice of 
the conditions under which he shall begin his earthly 
career — and those conditions have much to do with 
making man what he is. 

But neither does God make a separate and personal 
choice of the conditions in which a particular human 
soul begins its existence. God works only by law. He 
ordains a law by which the spirit germs (begotten of 
himself) exist before they begin their upward course in 
man. He makes another law by which they are 
attracted to the human organisms that become, through 
still other laws, ready to receive them. 

Then we have a human being, in the form of a 
babe. That babe contains within itself all the essen- 
tials necessary to the development, under forthcoming- 
conditions, of man, angel and archangel — how much 
higher we do not know ; the conditions, by unswerving 
laws, are always waiting his development ; and by a 
beautiful, wonderful, incomprehensible law of divine 
adaptation by attraction the conditions, when consid- 
ered as a whole — as surveyed from spiritual planes — 
always seem to have been the best that could have 
possibly been for the best development of that par- 
ticular and individual spirit germ. 

For spirits differ as much in their possibilities, even 
4 



50 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

in their embryo life, from each other as do the seeds of 
the vegetable kingdom. There are infinite shades of 
mystery and beauty in their laws of attraction and 
repulsion which infinity alone can fully comprehend. 

Thus, then, God is manifestly just. How is he 
merciful ? Not in permitting one individual, or a score 
of individuals, to evade some law. Not in making 
some especial exceptions, by elevating some individual 
through other than his own efforts : that would not be 
just. Neither does God suffer himself, nor allow the 
sins of any particular race of humanity to be expiated 
and atoned for by the sufferings of one particularly 
beloved and sinless son, even Christ Jesus: that would 
be unjust. 

But God is most lovingly and infinitely merciful in 
that he never forgets, nor ceases to have compassion 
upon, the undeveloped spirits, struggling through the 
darkness of ignorance and the weights of the flesh, and 
other environments, toward the light which he himself 
sheds through the universe. 

And as most convincing and comforting proof of 
his continued thoughtfulness and loving mercy he 
sends revelations, which shine out like a beacon light 
to a storm-tossed vessel at sea ; like a lantern held 
before one walking upon a rugged path in a dark night, 
to show him the way to avoid its stumbling places 
(and these revelations are through a higher, more mys- 
terious law than are the more common general laws 
which govern). But as "the wind is tempered to the 
shorn lamb," so must the light be tempered in its 
brightness and volume to the particular development 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 5 1 

of the race of clay-enveloped spirits whom God would 
lead through these especial out-pourings of spirit. 

Far less was given to Moses to reveal than was to 
Jesus. In Moses' time the Jewish tribe could not 
have comprehended the law of love that Jesus taught; 
the law of Moses gradually prepared the people to be 
able to receive the Messiah's greater spiritual truths. 
But Jesus himself said to his trained twelve that he 
had yet much to say to them which they could not bear 
then. 

You cannot find a race in the world that has not 
had, in one way or another, its revelations. The nature 
and extent. of these revelations depend always upon the 
peculiarities and the development of the race of people 
to whom they come. 

And every revelation has the same tendency to up- 
lift, to develop the spirit toward its natural and divine 
heirship. The ignorant heathen worshiping his 
wooden gods obeys a perception, however dim, of 
man's dependence upon a power without himself, whose 
mysteries he cannot hope to define. And a channel of 
thought once opened up is like a furrow plowed from 
the sea to irrigate the soil — the waters widen and deep- 
en the rut through which they run till in time that rut 
may become the mighty river. 

But you must not forget that God never hurries — 
that his patience is never exhausted — that his duration 
of time never gives out. All is accomplished slowly 
but surely by the processes of law — of development. 
All is perfect harmony; perfect unity are the purposes 
and laws of the family of God. It takes years on years 



52 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

in the world to develop the minds of mankind up to 
the comprehension of a new revelation. As soon as 
any great number of human minds are fitted to receive, 
the revelation is always given. 

God is more merciful than any human mind can 
comprehend — he has given man eternity, if he needs it, 
in which to work out his own salvation. 

Suppose God had made man perfect in the begin- 
ning, and avoided for him all this effort and stumbling; 
what greater thing would he then have been than a 
flower, a beast, a world ? He would have simply been 
such a thing as God made him — nothing more — no 
virtue in himself, no possibility of ever becoming 
greater than the thing which he was at first created. 

But God endowed man a living soul — endowed him 
the offspring of his own undying spirit ! — endowed him, 
too, with all the possibilities necessary to develop to a 
comprehension of Himself. Made him spiritually " in 
his own image," in that he gave him personal freedom 
and free-will and the inherent power of evolution out- 
wardly from his own individual life germ. 

All the merciful tenderness of a watchful and loving 
parent he shows in the revelations, the continual light, 
that he sheds downward through every grade of spirit- 
ual life to help him onward. The higher spirits devel- 
op toward God the more they turn backward to shed 
the light which they have received. 

It is a law which should be better understood and 
practiced in the world, for each individual's good, that 
he who hugs selfishly to himself any great truth or 
knowledge that has helped to elevate his mind above 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 



53 



the brute of his nature will not be able to progress be- 
yond what it is till he begins to give off, for the benefit 
of others, that which he has. 

Christ's injunctions of love one to another were in 
accordance with this law. Christ came to the world 
not to appease any wrath of an unmerciful God, not as 
an atonement for a sinful world, not to save any man 
from the inevitable result of his own sin — but he did 
come to save him from the dread and horror of the 
grave : to reveal to him a purer and better existence 
beyond that grave; to reveal to him all he could com- 
prehend of God's love and mercy; to reveal in his own 
spiritual body a living, tangible witness of the spiritual 
future of which he taught. 

He came to bring " tidings of great joy," in that 
God's blessed spirit is everywhere waiting to guide 
and uplift the weak and trembling spirit that is ready 
to receive its impressions. He came to save man from 
sin and suffering through man's own love nature when 
it can comprehend the glorious truth that God first and 
always loves him. He came to teach of the law also — 
to tell to man the inevitable result of " reaping as he 
sows." It was necessary that he should suffer and die, 
not for an atonement but for a revealment; to make 
a strong impression on men's minds and to reveal him- 
self to them afterward and clinch the fact of a spiritual 
existence in the minds of his followers. 

If this one fact could be fully received into every 
human being's mind, together with the truths which 
he taught, that through prayer strength of spirit is 
given to overcome man's lower nature, by will of the 



54 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

higher, the world would be saved indeed — saved in the 
very sense in which Christ came to save the world from 
its sins. 

Let every man know that just what he is determines 
the spiritual plane upon which he stands in any state 
of existence; let him know that everything in his de- 
velopment depends upon his own efforts, and let him 
understand with what charity, love and mercy God, and 
even every being upon a plane above himself, is ready 
and anxious to give him all he is capable of receiving of 
spiritual aid, and the innate love of light that is in even 
the lowest mortal will glow and diffuse its warmth 
through his whole being and impel him toward his sal- 
vation. 

There is no such possible thing as a soul's being 
totally lost. It may be at a standstill for ages, but 
there is always eternity ahead. There is no entire 
misery nor unalloyed happiness for any soul in its pro- 
gressions ; but the degree of either depends upon how 
much of a comprehension of God's justice and mercy 
the individual has arrived at. 



ARTICLE IX. 



QUESTION. 



V/hy does every nation have some idea of a future life? 
and do different nations entertain similar views re- 
garding a future life? 

ANSWER. 

EVERYTHING has its genera and species, each 
specie its own distinctive and peculiar develop- 
ment. 

This is from a law of diversity, which tends to 
greater harmony. The whole universe might be com- 
pared to an instrument upon which an anthem is 
played, each measure depending upon its own key-note 
for its volume and sweetness. 

Each specie, from its particular place in the measure, 
has -a peculiarity of development all its own. Every 
key of the instrument is not struck with the same 
power by the hand of the Almighty; if it were, there 
would be but a succession of monotonous notes — no 
melody — no harmony. 

The perfect performer makes no mistakes in the 
measures he produces, but interprets his own thoughts 
clearly in the composition of his melodies. 

Every race has its distinctive features, dependent 
55 






56 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

upon its higher or lower place in the scale of develop- 
ment. According, then, to the development must the 
mental powers of comprehension be. According to the 
development of the race must be the revelation to the 
race of life as existing both on the earth and in future 
states. 

" Why does every nation have some idea of a future 
life ? ' What is man placed in the world for? It is for 
a beginning of development, just as the seed of the 
tree is planted in the soil of the earth that it may be- 
gin a development of its possibilities, which it does 
with every little rootlet that it puts forth. Now, what 
kind of a development that man can obtain from the 
conditions of earth helps him most ? Not a merely 
physical one, evidently, since the earthly body is 
dropped as a shell — is of no more lasting consequence 
than is the clothing necessary to preserve that body in 
health while it lasts. 

The development, then, that is vital with any human 
soul is that which goes onward with him through 
eternity. How can any conception of the spirit that is 
in man — the principle that is greater than his outward, 
visible, material body — be gained save through some 
idea, however vague, of an existence beyond the 
earthly life? 

It is obvious, then, why such a conception is in some 
way revealed to all races of mankind as soon as they 
are able to receive it. No people ever reach a develop- 
ment and remain at a standstill waiting for a revela- 
tion. The revelation is always waiting the develop- 
ment of the people to a full comprehension of it, always 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 57 

something for their minds to work up to ; and an 
understanding of morality precedes that of any great 
spirituality. 

Certainly different nations do not and cannot enter- 
tain the same views in regard to a future life, though 
there may be points of similarity. A rude and barbar- 
ous nation could not comprehend the spiritual thoughts 
of a highly cultivated and Christianized one ; nor 
could they occupy, on the spiritual side of life, the 
same plane of existence. 

It is with the race as with the individual ; the most 
highly developed minds are most capable of compre- 
hending existence, and they always lead those behind 
them in perception and reflection. Confucius and 
Buddha no doubt served their races as well in the reve- 
lations desirable for the elevation of the then peculiar 
development of the race as Moses and Jesus served 
theirs. 

God works through ages. What a nation learns in 
one age is a transmitted knowledge, an uplift to the 
next age. And the light, the advancement of knowl- 
edge, of one nation spreads itself as gradually, as surely, 
to all nations of a world. 

Do you wonder? What of the nations that are 
or were so far behind — that reach the spiritual life in 
such darkness of ignorance ? Well, they are progress- 
ing too. There are no false notes in God's harmonious 
measures. 

To the individual, because he can feel his own pains, 
can realize his own aspirations and environments, there 
may seem to be many jars — chords that grate on his 



58 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

mortal ear — but this is only because he is still in a low 
state of development, because he possesses so little 
knowledge and perception of the vastness of the crea- 
tion of which he is an atom. 

When he realizes that his own good, his own ad- 
vancement, is assured along with the number of which 
he is a factor, then the law of brotherly love, and thus 
love to God — obedience to the law of God — is assured ; 
he is beyond the law then ; he has no further need of 
the law of command, such as was necessarily given 
through different revelations to different peoples of the 
world, because his own desires, his own will, leads him 
always to rejoice in helping to further the law. 



ARTICLE X. 



QUESTION. 
Where was the Garden of Eden ? 

ANSWER. 

EVERYTHING material, moral or spiritual is im- 
pressed upon the mind through its perceptions of 
opposites or contrasts. Light and dark, heat and cold, 
virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, are contrasting enti- 
ties, without one of which the other could form no 
impression. 

The New Testament is the best interpreter of the 
old. Paul says (Rom. v, 14), "Adam is a figure of him 
that was to come." Without a perception of man's sen- 
sual estate, as portrayed in the figure of Adam, a con- 
ception of his spiritual possibilities, as revealed through 
the nature and character of Jesus, could not have been 
impressed strongly enough upon the mind of man to 
give it an impetus to action and imitation. 

And it is by the impressions made upon the con- 
sciousness that the soul, which clothes the spirit and be- 
comes the arisen spiritual body, is developed within the 
" temple of clay " through which the life-giving spirit 
acts in earth life — controlling, yet subject to it. 

The mind, growing with its experiences, is molded 

59 



60 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

both from impressions through the outer or physical 
man and through consciousness from the inner or 
spiritual man'. 

But, of course, the physical impressions are much 
the more strong and vivid in the beginning, and form 
a framework, as it were, upon which the more subtle 
spirit impressions may accumulate, because the spirit is 
weak, through its associated but unassimilating condi- 
tion with matter, and cannot act freely or forcibly till 
rid of the opposing material body and clothed in its 
own adaptive spiritual body. Where the soul is mal- 
formed by excess of, or improper, physical impressions 
it must be healed by a more perfect understanding be- 
fore the spirit can advance in it. Yet there is that 
about the very material elements composing the phys- 
ical body necessary to give the strength and will power 
of control over lower forms, and vivid conception to a 
degree of greatness such as may constitute a spirit of 
God's creation — a son " in his own likeness." 

Thus you perceive the value of a long life on earth, 
even under adverse conditions. As all things were 
made of God, and " without him nothing was made 
that was made," it follows inevitably that the qualities 
of matter itself are inherent in the Divine mind. 

Yet the very qualities which appear evil and opposed 
to good in their first warring of opposing entities, by 
which soul-forms are evolved, may, in an assimilated, 
perfected state, such as that in which the Divine mind 
must exist (since all his laws, however diverse and 
opposing, tend to wholesale harmony), prove only 
qualities of wise, unimpeachable goodness. 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 6 1 

Adam was a figure of the carnal man, subject to the 
temptations of physical appetites, ungoverned by 
higher faculties which give him self-control and restraint. 

He who subjects any knowledge he may have of 
right and wrong to bodily desire also becomes the 
moral coward, representing timidity and falsehood, 
that Adam was. 

The serpent is a figure by which is represented de- 
sire, and the arguments with which reason will be per- 
suaded by the passions clamoring for their indulgence. 

What stronger figure could have been given than 
that of a woman by which a man may transgress? 
What thing under the sun does a man find it so hard 
to resist as the woman he loves, even when he knows 
her to be in the wrong? 

The curse is a figure, too. By what patient and 
arduous toil of the will in man is it that the fruit of 
the spirit — the bread of life — is developed through the 
dark soil of the physical man, to nourish aud sustain 
the growing soul ! Naturally, there was no mystery or 
misfortune in early times so great to man's mind as 
that of death, for which no reason appeared to his 
mind save the wrath of an offended deity. 

Understanding nothing of the spirit latent within 
him he could comprehend nothing of the death, to all 
intents and purposes, of that spirit when undeveloping, 
because of strong opposing environments. 

The Garden of Eden, then, is an allegory. If there 
had been no figure of original purity (as of course the 
original germ of spirit is pure) in the allegory there 
would have been no perception conveyed of the vice of 



62 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

yielding to the appetites of the flesh when opposed to 
the moral rectitude. 

Paul says, " Adam is a figure of him who was to 
come" — a figure of darkness, by which the light of 
truth and virtue and rectitude, and all fruits of the 
spiritual man as exemplified in Jesus, are thrown into 
greater prominence and contrast. 

But why did God endow man with so keen an appre- 
ciation of fleshly enjoyments and ever-recurring crav- 
ings for satisfaction, whose gratification begets misery 
and death (or lack of development of the spirit)? Fore- 
seeing all things, why did he so construct his laws that 
there should be a necessity of the knowledge of good 
and evil in man's mind ? Why did he form man essen- 
tially selfish, and place him among temptations appeal- 
ing always to self-indulgence, when the fruits of such 
indulgence are evils to his spiritual nature ? 

Since impressions are made upon the mind only by 
contrasts it is evident that by such contrasts alone can 
the mind develop beyond the thing which it is at first 
created, and it is only by this sort of a development 
that a creature can be given free will — the power to 
discriminate and choose. 

He learns from experience to love the light of truth 
and harmony as he learns to abhor darkness and its 
attendant miseries and loathsome horrors. 

He who comes into a clear light of knowledge and 
understanding cannot be tempted to wrong-doing, to in 
any way injure others or himself; yet we cannot assert 
that to sin is merely ignorance, it is not a vacuity, it is 
an entity as well as is godliness. I should say it 



/ 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 63 

is a quality inherent to the lower forms of matter from 
whence higher forms are evolved, the further they 
progress in enlightened and refined forms of matter the 
further they leave behind the influences of the dark, 
material atmosphere and substance in which the pro- 
pensities to sin are inherent. 

That first soil is the hot-bed in which the seed is 
germinated and puts forth its feelers. When you pluck 
the perfect fruit from the tree what trace do you per- 
ceive of the muck and mire in which the roots that 
started and fed it toward its completion were imbedded ? 

Ah ! but you say every soul is not alike. One de- 
velops much spiritual beauty in its earthly life and 
passes on to an existence of enjoyment and reward, 
while another, from no evident reason but that God 
ordained it so, lives a gross, carnal existence, and finally 
suffers only misery and degradation when in another 
sphere he comes to realize himself as he is in the dark- 
ness of his own spirit. 

You admit the sinful man may be an example to 
other men, and cause them to reflect and shun the evil 
which he so shockingly portrays, and thus good to 
others may result from his abasement ; but the man 
who was fitted to be a vessel of dishonor — where is 
God's justice and compensation to him ? 

Your trouble arises from supposing that he who is 
what you call good finds existence after the change to 
spiritual life a very easy, an enjoyable, affair. Many call- 
ing themselves Christians picture to their fancies a lazy, 
unprogressive existence that would be as gross to the 
spirit as is an altogether sensual life to the soul on earth. 



64 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

You forget that none is entirely good but God, be- 
cause none other has all knowledge. We must believe 
that God has knowledge of good and evil, because he 
governs all things by such strong contrasts ; but that he 
prefers the good because he leads the souls he creates 
always toward that end. 

You forget that the more spiritual, the more filled 
with the light of true knowledge, the soul becomes, the 
more it loves, not some great, unknown spirit it calls 
God merely, but all creation in and through which God 
is revealed. 

Loves particularly all of its own kind, with which 
the attraction of " like to like" brings it into closest 
sympathy and understanding. How, then, can a " good 
spirit" be entirely, or rather carelessly, happy, seeing 
others of its kind miserable, and knowing the cause of 
that misery and the remedy? 

He may be happy because he knows the remedy. 
But can he be idle? Can he find time merely to enjoy 
to live, merely for the delights of sensing his own exist- 
ence, free from pains and sufferings? Would not the 
moment he so fell from goodness as to conceive of such 
self-indulgence his torments of self-reproach and self- 
contempt exceed any sufferings which what you would 
call a "bad spirit" would be capable of enduring? 

It is obvious, then, the very God-ordained law of his 
own nature, the quality of selfishness, which, less en- 
lightened, begets injury to others, compels him volun- 
tarily to work patiently, persistently, unfalteringly, for 
the elevation and development into the light of his 
darker brethren. 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. ' 6$ 

And he works with great humility. He perceives 
the environments which surrounded and retarded the 
dark one in earth life, witnesses the efforts and 
struggles of the suffering spirit to throw off the habits 
of character which still bind it. 

He proves his gratitude for having escaped such suf- 
ferings by the devotion with which he lends himself to 
the aid of any whom he may find his peculiar individ- 
uality fits him to help. He cannot progress so very far 
— he cannot go beyond and out of the sight of his race 
in happiness and knowledge. 

He must wait and be a teacher, a guide, to help 
them along in the path which he can perceive, leading 
upward, where all may tread, when the search has been 
made, " till all are found." 

If men in the world could realize this do you not 
suppose they would labor harder while upon the earth, 
through the development and instruction of children, 
and of the fallen everywhere, and save themselves 
ages of work in the next world, even if they escape 
such personal wrong-doing and misery? 

For it is harder far to take a soul out of a rut of 
wrong thoughts and desires than it is to prevent him 
from falling into one, or to help him up when he first 
falls. 

Do you think any one who should realize all this 
could push an unfortunate further down, even if he was 
in the way ? 

The story of the prodigal son is a good example of 
the rejoicing in spirit life over a soul that emerges from 
the darkness into the light. But the story does not go 
5 



66 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

far enough to tell what a hero the prodigal becomes 
for the conversion of those in the darkness, which he 
remembers in such vivid contrast to his glorified peace 
and knowledge, that his love to God and his brethren 
transcends, often, the comprehension of those born on 
the spiritual side of life who lack the vigor of will and 
wisdom which earth experience and influence infuses. 

Thus all things work together for good indeed. 

There is no limit to time — there is always eternity- 
ahead and always new delights and possibilities to be 
found in every progression. We know God is good 
and loving, and will promote the ultimate good of all, 
because the nearer we approach him the more of all 
that is opposed to good and love must be left behind. 

But we also know that upon our own individual 
efforts depends not only our own good but the good of 
our race, and even the race must pause to keep the 
race behind it following in its wake. 

The spiritual planes are united so closely they are 
like steps of a mighty stairway, leading on up to mys- 
tery, glory, infinity. 

And through all and over all the holy spirit of God 
is infused, more willing to give of spiritual holiness to 
any one who by desire places himself en rapport to re- 
ceive, than the most earnest petitioner, longing through 
his prayers for the fullness of its bounty, is willing to 
receive. 

Let all keep, then, the spiritual attitude of prayer, 
which is that of being willing to be impressed with the 
truth. 



ARTICLE XL 



QUESTION. 



Wherein were Christ and his disciples different from 
other men ? 

ANSWER. 

IT is necessary to use some kind of a figure to im- 
press a figure when finite words are too meager to 
convey a tithe of the richness of spirit thought. 

(This should always be remembered when studying 
the sayings of Christ and his disciples. Try to under- 
stand not merely the words or figure employed, but the 
spirit which is meant to be conveyed.) Having under- 
stood previous articles, you will remember we found in 
the great center of all things, whom scriptures term 
Jehovah, the odic force which is the prime or first 
cause of all forces. 

Now for a figure of this odic force, existing at its 
source in Jehovah, let us take a simple, clean fire of an- 
thracite coal. As it glows and burns there it gives off 
several things, not one of which is a bit of the entire 
coal itself. There is heat : compare those rays of heat 
to the emanations of life from God, by which the vital- 
izing principle is communicated to everything that 
lives. There is light : let that answer to the emana- 

67 



6& LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

tions of spirit which scatter far and wide the seed 
germs of spirit throughout the universe, and constantly 
feed those germs, always through the attraction of like 
to like. 

The greater the development the greater the attrac- 
tion, and hence the more rays of light that will be 
received (just as a highly-polished surface attracts and 
reflects more rays from the sun than a duller one). 
Then there is motion: consider this like unto the 
mighty emanations which produce the cosmos force. 
We have previously seen that when one of these seed- 
germs of light falls into the embryo germ of mortality, 
produced through conjunction of the attraction of the 
sexes, we have the miniature babe, with nothing more 
required but time for its development — nothing more. 
If it is never developed in earth life it will be in the 
next sphere to it. 

Well, suppose, now, one little coal from that glow- 
ing fire had been dropped into the soul of the embryo 
babe, instead of merely the seed of light ! Do you not 
suppose one such little coal — nay, hundreds — might be 
spared, yet never seem to affect the strength of the 
heat and light of a vast bed of glowing coals ? (Re- 
member this is but a poor figure of great power and 
glory.) How does anybody know but that by some 
incomprehensible law such a coal is sent, at certain 
proper intervals, to every world in the universe? 

But if it is, how shall any being less than the spirit 
in the coal be able to reveal the fact ? If we are not 
gods, to witness the workings of God primo facto, how 
shall we be able, from any knowledge that we can 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 69 

have (which you remember is only what we have ex- 
perienced), to assert a positive affirmative, more than a 
positive denial ? But as we may be able to judge some- 
what of laws which we cannot grasp, analyze or define 
by their workings, so may we judge of how Christ 
differed from other men by what he did, and the 
effects which he produced. 

What other man ever lived in your world whose 
influence was potent enough to cause the chronology 
of time, as reckoned in the world, to be dated from his 
birth? What other man ever lived who aroused the 
amount of thought and discussion in the most intelli- 
gent minds of the earth that he has done, and does? 
What other man taught spirit truths so simple that 
the mind of the young child is able to grasp their 
meanings, and the little eyes glisten with love and 
sympathy, the sweet voice grow more gentle and 
tender from the spirit stirred and thought awak- 
ened in the young soul, yet truths so profound, so 
impressive, that not nineteen hundred years of elabora- 
tion and discussion and reflection has been sufficient 
to bring forth one-half the force and attractiveness and 
helpfulness of the spirit of the teachings with which 
Jesus of Nazareth expounded the mind of God? 

Much more might be asked, but ponder well these 
three simple questions, then ask of your own soul, 
Wherein did Christ differ from other men ? 

As to the disciples, the purely human characteristics 
of the men show in all the examples given of their 
lives and sayings. But their spirits were enlarged and 
lifted up by the teachings and example of a spirit 






yo LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

greater and higher than their own. Just so may the 
minds and spirits of men to-day be enlarged and lifted 
up by influx of spirit greater than themselves, if they 
earnestly seek. 

That was one of the clearest and most explicit 
teachings of Christ — the spirit which was left in the 
world, free to all men when he was gone. Not but 
that the spirit was always in the world — but it was not 
perceived of men, nor understood ; and Christ asserted 
that he, also, was before the world began. If his testi- 
mony proves true in other things, have we a right to 
doubt it in this? 

Does the incarnation trouble you ? Are you able, 
then, to tell why, or how, or in what manner, your own 
spirit becomes incarnate in the body in which you are 
at present imprisoned? Can you tell when the life 
principle of your own spirit began? through what 
stages it may have passed ? or if it existed before the 
world existed in which you are now conscious of living? 
If you cannot answer questions concerning your own 
identity, with which you would naturally be suoposed 
to be most familiar, by what logic or authority can you 
deny Christ's positive statements of what he knew con- 
cerning himself? He also asserted that every man was 
a son of God by divine birthright with himself. 

Would it not be wisdom to accept, in lieu of mys- 
teries which you cannot fathom, this conclusion : if an 
ordinary man's spirit holds a cupful of the divine spirit, 
then the spirit of Christ holds a whole barrelful. 

Many persons whose enthusiasm leads them to 
magnify the facts of mediumship, and those to whom 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. J I 

the spirits of their departed friends seem more than 
the spirit of Christ, satisfy themselves upon the whole 
subject by saying, " Christ was a medium." 

Do any mediums, after they die, come back, without 
the aid of dark circles, or cabinets, and allow their 
former friends to handle their spiritual bodies and 
talk at length to them ? and, also, do they partake freely 
of food with them ? Does any medium dare to assert 
that he is one with God when he knows he is about to 
die? Do you know the name of any medium potent 
enough to keep dark, low spirits away from other 
developing mediums? Let any medium thus troubled 
with influences which he feels to be low or impure 
pray earnestly and persistently, in the name of Christ 
Jesus, to be delivered from them, then add his testi- 
mony to that of the spirits of light and truth, through 
all the spheres of heaven, who are ever ready to pro- 
claim that Christ is very Lord, Son of God, and King 
of Hosts. 



ARTICLE XII. 



QUESTION. 



What is the condition and redemption in spirit life of the 
one who was a wrong-doer in earth life — say, of a 
murderer ? 

ANSWER. 

IT depends upon the condition of wrong-doing: where 
no wrong is intended no sin is imputed. 

As in earth life one desiring to do the right, who 
finds he may have unwittingly wronged another, ex- 
periences regret and strives to redress the wrong, so 
the one who in the light of spiritual unfoldment finds 
his earthly influence among men had a wrong or cor- 
rupt tendency strives by every means within his power 
to counteract the influence he left behind him, by spir- 
itual impressions, inculcating the right tendencies of 
thought. He is not comfortable in mind till he sees he 
has done something to appease his own regrets, and 
has witnessed some fruits of his opposing efforts. 

Thus with the murderer who unintentionally de- 
prives his victim of life. He devotes himself as soon 
as he is able to the amelioration of any adverse con- 
ditions of his victim outcoming from the deprivation 
of earthly experiences from which he was too suddenly 

72 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 73 

cut off. But the Cain who deliberately spills his 
brother's blood through hate — his condition is the most 
wretched that can be imagined. 

While no earthly repentance can atone for the deed, 
still, if he truly repent in earth life it is a great help — 
then he has before him the light of a true perception 
of his own condition, and he is permitted (through his 
own earnest desire) to begin to work out his own re- 
demption through the devotion with which he lends 
himself to the service of his victim. 

Such a weary, dreary task ! The ages stretching 
out before him, showing through their darkness but one 
light for him — that of the service which it is shown him 
he may perform toward his victim or those who were 
connected with him, upon whom his death may have 
had an indirect influence (through want and misery, 
perhaps) of depriving them of the spiritual develop- 
ment which the wretched slayer may perceive might 
have been theirs if his hand had not deprived them of 
their loved one, or if thoughts of hate and revenge had 
not been engendered in their minds through the dread- 
ful shock and sorrow which they then experienced. 

For there is endless difference between a service 
which must be performed to redress one's own wrong- 
doing and a service wherein the highest seems to stoop 
to the lowest, yet proves his spiritual altitude by the 
largeness of his love when he bends. 

The willful murderer, who passes over with his soul 
seething with the passions of hate and murder, is 
indeed in " outer darkness " — the darkness of his own 
soul, which excludes all light. There are the " bad 



74 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

spirits'* — the ones who, imprisoned between barriers of 
their own willful embracings of evil passions and unde- 
sire of betterment, are necessarily associated with only 
those as evil as themselves in a spiritual existence, 
where only the laws of attraction regulate the planes 
of thought. And thus evil festering with evil repro- 
duces evil in more hideous forms of thought than could 
be possible to a mind on earth, where, from the ad- 
mixture of good with bad, the most evil nature is con- 
stantly somewhat toned and improved. 

Now every individual spirit has an aroma as well as 
every individual of the vegetable kingdom (be it at- 
tractive flowers, noxious weeds or tempting fruit) has 
its odor. And there is a " thought atmosphere " as 
well as that every planet has its atmosphere, wherefrom 
the life pertaining to it draws sustenance, and likewise 
injury at times. The atmosphere of the earth will 
float miasmas born of its own species' decay as well as 
the health-giving tonic native to its growth and unfold- 
ment. 

The more subtle, soul-sustaining thought atmos- 
phere is likewise capable of certain infections from the 
dark spirits Avhich recede from light, in place of advanc- 
ing in order of progression toward it. 

These spirits of darkness, then, continually foster 
the evil influences on earth, while the spirits of light 
as constantly lend their disinfectant, health-giving in- 
fluence to the earth, developing souls. 

No spirit of evil can come near enough to influence, 
an earthly inhabitant to his harm unless his thoughts 
and desires attract it. But if his mind has a bent to 



LEAFLETS 6f TRUTH. 75 

delve in the darkness of error and sin, earthly workers 
may do far more to induce him to turn to the light 
than any spirits of goodness and love can. 

He may be influenced on earth through his outer 
physical conditions — oftentimes his physical sufferings 
induce him to a different reflection, understanding and 
desire — but when the conditions of flesh are passed, and 
his soul can no longer experience bodily pain, there 
seems nothing to lift him to better thoughts and 
desires, and the spirit seems to lose even the rays of 
light which were once native to it. 

What the conditions of such a spirit's redemption 
may be we cannot tell. If he be really so "lost" to 
light as to have no desire for betterment, the mind of 
God alone, which can know his whole condition and the 
reason for it, can know what may be his redemption, 
and what time in God's eternity it may take to solve it. 

But we have no reason to say there can be no re- 
demption more than that eternity can have an end. 

It is not possible, in a spiritual existence, that the 
good should come near such evil — should even witness 
their manner of existence or thought. They could not 
help them, and there would be nothing to attract on 
either side. 

But we have never witnessed such a soul passing 
from earth life ; always there is a regret — always in the 
heart of the most stubborn-lipped wretch there is a 
consciousness of wrong, an appreciation of the good 
and true, that makes him willing to turn his face 
toward the light of improvement. 

If he is unable to bear light from higher sources he 



76 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

may return to earth to learn of those striving to be 
good there. His own influence is not good, since he is 
below those whom he approaches, yet the earthly one 
striving to do right protects himself by prayer — by the 
earnest wish of his soul to be right — from all such in- 
fluences that would be malarious to his spirit ; he has a 
sure antidote that is within the reach of every one. 

But it is important that one should get the right 
start in spiritual development in earth life, else he can- 
not hope to do such double work as retracing his steps 
and ever catch up with those who, leaving earth in 
proper purity and development, keep steadily advanc- 
ing toward the center of all light and holiness. 



ARTICLE XIIL 



QUESTION. 



In the spirit life WHERE is the home of the soul? 
Jesus said: "In my Father s house are many man- 
sions. I go to prepare a PLACE for you, that where 
I am ye may be also." Where is that place — the 
home of the soul ? 

ANSWER. 

THE soul of the butterfly, which shall become a fin- 
ished, matured form, is as much concealed while it 
creeps upon the earth in the shape of a caterpillar as 
when lying dormant in its chrysalis ; and it is as blind, 
but it has some senses through which outer impres- 
sions may be conveyed to it. 

For convenience we will use the caterpillar for our 
figure, and let the chrysalis answer to the dormant state 
in which, for a longer or shorter space of time, the soul 
must lie in its transition stage toward its new birth. 

For not instantly are the interlacings which bind the 
soul to its mortal frame ever broken. 

Now our caterpillar can move about in search of 
food to supply the elements from which the new or 
true form will be builded through the metamorphoses 

77 



78 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

going on within him. So, as man moves through earth 
life, the elements are contributed through every emo- 
tion and experience of his life, as well as from the 
emanations from his earthly frame from which his soul 
— the clothing of his spirit — is builded. 

There is not an act, a thought, or a loathsome 
disease but leaves some impress on the soul as well as 
does purity and cleanliness of person and motives. 

This cannot be too thoroughly borne in mind. 

Our caterpillar can feel. He is covered all over 
with bristling hairs, which are like papilla to convey 
intelligence of every touch to his perception ; but 
approach him, menace him with a stick, he does not stir 
unless one of those feelers of his are touched — touched 
either by the object or by an unusually strong wave of 
air. And he curls up the same in the damp or in the rain. 

When he has become a butterfly menace him again 
with your stick. Does he wait for you to touch him 
with it ? He can see now as well as feel. As he wings 
his flight through the palpitating ether does life seem 
the same to him flooded with the warm sunlight, with 
leafy retreats and multitudinous sounds, as when deaf 
and blind he crawled in the damp mold ? 

Yet it is the same world ; only he now is alive to it 
all — he has new powers and is free to use them to their 
fullest extent ; and he lives upon a higher plane than 
does his fellow-worm. It would not be possible now 
for him to feel existence as he once did in his old 
shell ! And if he could, through any one of those 
feelers made to sense outward things, communicate 
with his brother caterpillar, do you suppose the cater- 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 79 

pillar could at all comprehend what a different life it 
was, sensed outside of his shell prison ? 

Does this figure convey a comprehensible fact to 
your mind? 

It is the same that Paul meant when he said, " Now 
we see as through a glass, darkly, but there face to face." 
Jesus said : " In my Father's house are many mansions: 
if it were not so I would have told you." 

The apostles came from many different walks in 
life. They came not of themselves, but were chosen 
because of the fitness of their spirits to the work, which 
the eye of the Master could see. 

Though they had the one essential thing of spirit in 
common, having so many differing characteristics each 
must have felt different soul-needs necessary to his 
perfect happiness when he entered into the promised 
reward for all his labors and sufferings on earth. 

The mind of Peter, the humble, ignorant, but most 
faithful disciple, when its earthly mission was per- 
formed would require widely different means of devel- 
opment than that of Luke, the cultivated, polished and 
opulent physician! Jesus, recognizing these different 
needs, " comforted them " with the promise of different 
homes suited to the wants of each. 

" I go to prepare a place for you," the Master said. 
"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again and receive you unto myself, that where I am 
there ye may be also." 

Their place was to be " with him," or where they 
could communicate with his spirit, because they fol- 
lowed him and carried on the same spiritual work that 



80 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

he beean and revealed in his lifetime on earth. Do 
you think any would cease to work in the spirit life ? 

The place in the spirit world where a soul finds its 
home depends upon the spiritual status of that soul. 

It is not the amount of earthly culture or knowl- 
edge that he may be possessed of, — not even his 
moral rectitude and works of charity and good will, — if 
such works proceed merely from a sensitive nature and 
unwillingness to witness suffering. Spirituality means 
more than this — it means the obligation which every 
soul owes to its Creator, by which he proves himself a 
true son of the Father in putting his strength, be it 
much or little, to the task of furthering the good of 
humanity, in helping any and every soul to recognize 
the spirit of God within himself, and in witnessing 
the glory of God in every creature and creation that he 
has made. 

For God's glory consists in his creations. And the 
only possible way of serving God is in helping on the 
triumph of the good in all creation partaking of the 
odic force, or will, till all opposing the good is elim- 
inated from every individual spirit to God's eternal and 
everlasting glory! 

But in the place or plane upon which the spirit may 
be located, to which he gravitates by the poise of his 
own equilibrium, there are many mansions indeed, — 
different localities, as there are on earth, where every 
spirit's mind may be fed according to its development 
and capacities. 

Some souls hunger through all their earth life for 
some want of their intellectual powers, or of their affec- 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 8 1 

tions, which circumstances do not allow them to fill. 
Such a want is like a missing stone in a foundation, it 
must be supplied before the superstructure can be 
builded. No outer circumstances fetter the spirit in 
the spirit world. 

Its condition depends upon what it carries within 
itself, and it is attracted to the sources which will sup- 
ply the want it feels. For the spirit is a thought 
world. 

Souls develop and gain in strength and grandeur by 
the knowledge which they acquire of all things. 

But whether he be high or low, first or last, in place, 
depends upon the spirit — the light that is within him; 
as if you place different liquids in a vessel the most 
volatile will rise, the heaviest sink to the bottom. 

Thus some very gifted and nobly cultivated souls 
will be found upon comparatively low spiritual planes, 
while those possessed of quite little knowledge of the 
universe or of its laws (as frequently will those who 
passed to spirit life in embryo or babyhood) will have 
their homes or true place high in the gradation of spirit- 
ual life. They may be able to transmit much spiritual 
light, too, yet be so wanting in wisdom and will (which 
comes of knowledge) as to wield little power on their 
own plane. 

But the great soul possessed of the small, undevel- 
oped spirit upon the low plane is not an entirely con- 
tented or happy soul, because he feels his faculties 
always constrained and restricted through the dimness 
of his own spiritual perceptions. He needs more 
light. When he fully realizes this he gives up all else 



82 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

and seeks for light alone, which may be transmitted to 
him, perhaps, by one far smaller in soul stature than 
himself. He must become very humble to recognize 
this and be grateful for such help. 

Thus it is that of such — those who are become 
humble as a little child — are the kingdom of heaven. 

And in that kingdom — the place of high spirituality 
— all are happy entirely, because there is plenty of light 
by which they can view all things in peace and joy, 
knowing all things to be right and good, and can pro- 
gress continually without any hindrances coming from 
their own personality. 

And you may perceive from all this that the " home 
of the soul " may change with the changes wrought in 
itself, through the eternal progressions of the soul. 



ARTICLE XIV. 



QUESTION. 



Are spirits — departed souls — permitted to visit other 
worlds than this, and to know aught of their condi- 
tions and of the happenings there ? 

ANSWER. 

IS it possible for you to realize that you are in a state 
of chrysalis — that your true self, your soul, is in a 
state of being formed within the shell or enveloping 
shadow which you call your earthly body? When it 
shall have become finished, whether it be completed as 
the gorgeous butterfly or as the homely gray moth, it 
will wing its flight from the realm of shadows to begin 
its growth in its native ether, where no shadows fall. 
Then begins the reality of existence. (But mark ! the 
shape of an object may be computed from its shadow, 
if one knows from whence the light falls.) 

Does not your own Niagara form a perfect shadow 
of its falls by a spray of cloud reflected high in the air? 
Now if you were in a balloon, and should pass through 
the cloud, would you observe its shape, think you, whiie 
passing through the cloud ? 

But you can see the shape of the fall of water and 
hear its roaring while so near that you could spring 

83 



84 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

into it. The water is a thing natural to your sense and 
perception. The vapor is not. You cannot hear, touch, 
taste, smell or see a cloud while passing through it : it 
merely obscures things to your view. You would never 
think of investigating the cloud above the fall to dis- 
cover what the real thing, the fall, is made of. 

Well, your dear old earth is just as much an unreal, 
intangible thing to the senses of a departed soul as is 
the cloud of vapor to y 

Departed souls do not visit the earth — that is, they 
do not enter again into its materiality — to know of its 
conditions and happenings. They can see the souls of 
men within the clay while the clay itself appears more 
as a shadow or covering enveloping them. 

Yet they can see you and your friend plainer than 
you can see your friend, though you stand face to face 
with him. Have you never looked into the eyes of 
your friend and listened to his voice striving to convey 
an idea of his thoughts to your mind, yet. wondered all 
the while what was the idea, struggling behind the 
shadow of eyes and voice, which you strove to pierce 
with your senses, to find the real thing anxious to re- 
veal itself to you ? 

Did you never yourself find words entirely inade- 
quate to express the strength and shades of your feel- 
ing? 

I say departed souls do not visit the earth. Natur- 
ally they do not ! If time and development has not 
removed them too far from the attraction of old in- 
fluences they may, under certain conditions, enter tem- 
porarily within the shadowy covering of an unliberated 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 85 

soul {without displacing the natural soul. The moment 
the natural soul was removed or displaced the shadow 
would become untenantable. What departed spirit 
ever seeks to reveal itself through a corpse, a discarded 
shell ?) and view material things from his state of ex- 
istence through his dim glass of vision. Or, if skillful 
enough, a departed soul may weave for himself from cor- 
responding essences a covering so similar to the earthly 
shell that he may reveal himself in it, and even see and 
hear and speak and touch and taste and smell through 
it, as long as he can concentrate zvill enough to hold it 
together. 

Thus when you say you see the sun, the moon, the 
stars, it is not the real planet that you see, but you see 
its shadow of materiality through the shell that encom- 
passes yourself. The clear light of the object itself, as 
departed souls see it, you could not bear. 

A soul that enters the spirit life, till he gains a use 
of his new faculties, needs as gentle care as a new-born 
babe in your life. 

Thus, you perceive, departed souls from earth can no 
more visit other worlds than they can their own — that is, 
the materiality of other worlds — to take on their condi- 
tions of life and see as the world-bound souls of those 
other worlds see from their own plane of vision. 

And they cannot make for themselves a covering 
similar to the inhabitants of those other worlds (as they 
sometimes may like those of their native world), because 
there are points of dissimilarity between their own souls 
and those other souls. 

Nor would there be attraction enough between them 



86 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

and a world-bound soul of foreign worlds to hold them 
to the wordly condition sufficiently close for any sort of 
communication. 

But the advanced spirits from earth may and do 
meet and exchange ideas and knowledge with spirits 
from other worlds. There is a universal spirit language 
where one is advanced- enough to comprehend it, a lan- 
guage which is reflection of thought, no words, as you 
understand language, being used or needed. 

The real or spirit homes of the inhabitants of other 
worlds may be visited, yet it is not a common thing, 
and one that requires the development of a larger 
power of will than may be attained in less than ages 
of thought and discipline. If a medium sometimes 
tells you, when entranced, that he visits other worlds, 
etc., he may think his soul is taken there, but it is not 
so : the thoughts from souls which know of other 
worlds are reflected upon his own thoughts and repro- 
duced mechanically by his organs of speech to you. 
(As visions are given which are merely the concen- 
tration of thoughts or memories from an individual 
operating mind, en rapport with, and reproduced by, 
will of the operating mind upon the under receptive 
mind.) And you receive the reflection through, may 
be, a number of different minds. Do you expect the 
reflection can be exact ? 

If souls could return to worlds promiscuously what 
a confusion there would be of thoughts and ideas in 
your own world, generated from influences of spirits 
differing in nature from your own as one star differeth 
from another in glory ! 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 87 

But the nearer they advance toward one great source 
or center the nearer they must approach in character- 
istics, as rays in their conveyance. 

When advanced enough to feel an attraction — to 
give or to receive — then they exchange with each 
other ; but then they have passed so far from the 
attraction of their former worldly condition that ideas 
must be transmitted through many grades of mind, and 
refracted and lost in their passage more or less in each 
transmission, till the image given would be very dim 
indeed — scarcely worth the while. No; you will never 
be able to hail the inhabitants of other worlds through 
any medium clearer than your own telescope ! 

But there is much that you can discover of other 
worlds — as you see them — by your own powers and 
efforts. 

The light that is given you to see by is the best for 
you in your present state of chrysalis, and if used to 
the best of your ability will be a priceless revenue to 
you always. And there is much for you to see. 

Remember, you can find out in your present condi- 
tion things pertaining to the materiality of your life and 
world which no departed soul can know from after ex- 
periences of his own. 

There are discoveries made on earth which help to 
unravel the mysteries of laws whose workings are wit- 
nessed but uncomprehended in the spirit world! There 
is much in your own world to learn. The man of sci- 
ence who makes one discovery of an actual fact is as 
helpful in his way to his race, and thus a benefactor to 
all races, as is a prophet or a seer. 



88 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

He, like all who are able to discover truths, whether 
material, moral or spiritual, is a mediator between the 
Divine mind, from whence all truth flows, and the 
creatures partaking of the Divine mind essence — of 
breathings of divinity, which require these discoveries 
of truth as channels through which their own soul 
waters may flow in their round of eternal progression 
back again to the fount from whose overflow they were 
started on their way — were breathed into existence. 

Poets and artists are the second mediators which 
turn these truths in ways to present their different as- 
pects to the duller minds of men. Following these are 
writers, and ministers, and lecturers — teachers of all 
kinds who enlarge and explain as their minds have re- 
ceived to minds which require such agitation to awaken 
their own perceptions of things. All have a use divine. 

How often does a man say: " I desired to learn — 
to know of this or that when I was younger ; but now 
I am so old — I shall soon die — I could make little 
use of such knowledge now — it is not worth my 
while." (Such a reflection shows how prevalent is the 
thought in the world that death will either put an end 
to the working of the mind or materially change its 
powers of working. A more correct appreciation of 
life on earth and always would do more than aught else 
can to hasten the millennium.) And feeling his bodily 
powers failing the man lets his soul become all covered 
over with the rust of disuse. If only such a man could 
realize that because his earthly time grows short the 
more he should make of it, with his maturer powers of 
mind to know, to discover, to observe, to compare, to 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 89 

reflect, while he could still see, to measure the shape of 
the shadows. 

The owl, perchance, sees gradations in the dark 
which eyes formed for daylight may not detect! 

And a man would not fall into the dotage of old 
age, being merely a healthy animal with his powers of 
mind lying dormant, if he kept them bright with con- 
stant use. 

The spirit, feeling more and more its new-born pow- 
ers, would drop the old body as easily as a garment 
grown thread-bare is torn at the slightest strain. 



ARTICLE XV. 



QUESTION. 



Is there any real benefit received from prayer, or does it 
merely produce a state of mental resignation f 

ANSWER. 

IT is necessary to hold constantly before the mind 
the three principles of which man is composed 
before one can arrive at any correct understanding of 
such manifestations as they make their successive im- 
pressions upon the perceptions. 

We will take these three principles, then, in the 
order in which they are most apparent to the earthly 
man : matter, soul or mind, spirit. 

Now each of th.ese three are entities — real substance 
— in differing manifestations. 

On the earth you deal mostly with matter ; that, to 
a certain extent, you understand. 

In the next state, or " spirit world " (as it is called), 
it is soul or mind, as visible and tangible to the souls 
dwelling there as are your earthly bodies and surround- 
ings to you. 

But that which is behind and greater than both 
of these is spirit, and, unlike either soul or matter, whose 

QO 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 91 

possibilities and powers of extent are limited, and 
which are incapable of forming a combination with 
each other by which the third principle, spirit, or any- 
other principle than their own, may be evolved, spirit 
may combine with either matter or soul, and does con- 
tinually, and by the interchangeable combination of 
spirit with matter, and spirit with soul or mind, the 
third principle is constantly evolved and perpetuated. 

The spirit world is not evolved from the earth 
world, but the earthly is the result of the spiritual, as 
a shadow is the result of the rays of light falling upon 
an object. The reflection of the spirit shining upon 
the soul worlds produce the worlds of matter. Again, 
the combinations of spirit with the forms of matter 
evolved from the worlds of matter produce the indi- 
vidual souls who people the spirit worlds. 

Thus, you perceive, the universe is produced from 
the mind or intelligence of God, combined with his 
will or life principle, which is the spirit. 

But the children of God, which are greater than 
worlds, because possessed of will of their own, which is 
omnipotent, are developed inversely from the lowest to 
the highest. 

But the inmost or vital principle, the spirit, is the 
real substance of honor and glory, that upon and about 
which all else is formed. 

Now you know in what ways the physical or earthly 
body is developed. And I have before shown you, 
dimly, in what ways the soul is developed within the 
earthly temple : even how the soul may reach quite a 
commanding development while the spirit scarcely 



92 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

advances beyond its germ state — its first life-giving 
power. 

But there is a development for the spirit as well. 
And since spirit combines equally well with matter or 
soul, the spirit of man may develop just as w T ell and 
just as rapidly on earth as in the next soul existence — 
what you call " spirit life," which is a misnomer, for 
spirit life is everywhere equally. The difference is in 
individual spirits, of which you are one and I am one. 

Having become an individualized spirit, that you 
must remain forever : eternity, which has no end, is all 
the limit that spirit can ever reach. 

What, then, can feed the individualized spirit to its 
greatest development? Obviously, matter cannot, and 
soul or mind cannot, for both matter and mind are 
produced from spirit conjoined with either. 

Now there is something more. Spirit cannot suffer 
ioss. It can increase itself, but it cannot diminish itself. 

In that it differs from matter, which may be de- 
creased as well as increased, because it can be converted 
into something else. And mind also, may undergo 
change. But spirit partakes of the infinite, and is 
unchangeable. It may give off, may produce from 
itself, but can suffer no loss from such production. It 
is a quality inherent in itself to give off power to form 
other combinations from itself. (Without life there is 
nothing. You speak of dead matter, but really there 
is nothing but that is alive, only all things have not 
individualized life.) For an illustration of this giving 
quality: you give off something with every breath you 
draw (as well as with every thought you think) — some- 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 93 

thing which helps to furnish nourishment for something 
else — something which contributes toward a different 
combination of elements that appear in a different form 
than your own, yet you sustain no loss by breathing. 

But, you say, you also receive something conducive 
to your own formation by breathing ! 

Exactly. Nothing is lost. Every element that ever 
existed in the universe remains in the universe. Every 
form and expression of life merely helps itself to that 
which it needs for its own peculiar development from a 
continually used and thrown off exhaustless supply. 

The spirit has its own peculiar supply as well as the 
soul and the physical body have. 

Everything is from God, indeed ; and God's power 
to supply can never be diminished — is inexhaustible. 
But the individualized spirit receives its supply for 
spiritual growth from the individual love of God. 

But how can love be appropriated to one's self save 
through love ? Have you never known of an earthly 
mother who loved and yearned with unutterable long- 
ing for the confidence and love of her wayward, rebell- 
ious child, whereby she might help and show the child 
to a better manner of living, yet the child, infatuated 
with sensuous pleasures and blinded to their inevitable 
results of sickness or misery, avoided, and almost 
hated the mother, knowing her love and commendation 
could only be enjoyed by abandoning those gratifica- 
tions of the senses which lead to ruin. 

Well, it is something like this with prayer. He who 
prays from his heart to God must really feel a longing 
and a love for something which he fails to find, or to 



94 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

be satisfied with, in the flesh, or in the workings of the 
intellect, else it is impossible that he should feel the 
impulse to pray. And when he thus turns to God it 
is not the mind but it is the spirit that is refreshed — 
and when the spirit is refreshed the whole man feels 
the inflating of the spirit. The spirit really receives a 
spiritual substance, an individual atmosphere of God, 
just as much as your lungs receive that which re- 
freshes them from inhaling the pure air. Not but that 
the spirit always receives such an atmosphere to an ex- 
tent, because such atmosphere exists in all things, but 
it received by prayer, through an especial and more di- 
rect law, which is susceptible alone to the will of the 
individual. God's common laws of spirit constantly 
act upon the individual to attract his will ; but it is by 
the voluntary will of the individual alone that the full- 
ness of the spirit which develops and uplifts his own 
spirit can act upon him. It is this that makes the 
souls evolved through the forms of matter the crown- 
ing work of all creation. 

This need of The Spirit is the feeling of loneliness 
which every individual feels who recognizes his self- 
hood greater than that which comes to him from out- 
ward perceptions. He may not recognize what it is 
that gives him the feeling of standing alone in a uni- 
verse crowded with life, but sooner or later he will 
recognize it as the attraction existing between his own 
spirit and God — a covered way prepared for himself 
alone, within which no other individual spirit but his 
own can ever penetrate. It is God's love calling him as it 
calls sometime each individual separately that is created. 



ARTICLE XVL 



QUESTION. 

What is inspiration ? 

ANSWER. 

INSPIRATION is that faculty whereby a superior in- 
tellect acting upon an inferior excites it to its largest 
capacity of performance in a given direction ; also, it is 
a faculty communicating ideas unknown to the intellect 
acted upon. Inspiration presupposes a superior knowl- 
edge both of facts and of deductive reasoning, and 
arouses a latent power of inductive reasoning in the re- 
ceiving intellect, which causes that intellect to have 
ability to apprehend with his own individual powers 
the ideas conveyed. 

It does not make a mere automatic machine of the 
individual receiving, because it requires in its action 
that the individual shall first apprehend before convey- 
ing through media of his own the ideas received. 

Thus it is evident that it is a dual operation of in- 
telligence, embracing both the conveyed idea from a 
superior and the native capacity of the inspired indi- 
vidual. And you will perceive the force and strength 
of the idea which the inspired writer or speaker conveys 
to other minds through his own will depend upon his 

95 



g6 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

own power (native or acquired) of being able to give 
expression to the workings of his own mind. 

Inspiration is truth ; it is an exact reproduction of 
the idea received as nearly as the individual's power of 
conveyance will allow. The moment it ceases, in that 
sense, to be truth it ceases to be inspiration. 

The superior influence exciting the mind to its best 
activity will prevent that mind from conveying a false 
idea, — or, to express it better, it is impossible that the 
mind, passively lending its powers to the influence of 
intellectual impressions without its own natural realm 
of thought, should produce that which would be false 
to those impressions. The moment it should try to do 
that it must begin to exercise its own natural functions 
of will in opposition to that of the controlling influence, 
and then inspiration ceases — it is then merely the 
workings of the individual mind, and nothing beyond 
the previous knowledge and capacity of that mind is 
received. Yet in so subtle and easily interchangeable 
an action of mental powers as this, it is almost impos- 
sible that something of the receiver's own individuality 
of thought should not creep in; and it is always certain 
that the native individuality of expression will be used. 
For instance: if the inspired writer be of a poetical, en- 
thusiastic temperament, the language used and illus- 
trative comparisons will partake of that character ; if 
his mind be slow, sluggish, dogmatical, a more dic- 
tative, cold, unyielding round of sentences will be em- 
ployed ; if his nature be essentially loving and gentle 
the same ideas conveyed through his intellect will be 
distinguished by their tenderness and sweetness of per- 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 97 

suasion to win other minds to the ideas presented. To 
illustrate: if you look at a bit of landscape through a 
blue glass, a yellow glass or a red glass, you see each 
time the same form of objects but their color appears 
toned by the hue of the glass through which you look. 

Resume: Inspiration gives new ideas to the receiving 
mind; and it excites. 

Now when it merely excites the mind to convey the 
desired idea by way of its own acquired knowledge or 
memory of certain things, it has merely to hold the 
idea before the working mind to arouse its dormant 
faculties of knowledge and memory, and to hold the 
mind steadily to its own work of production ; but when 
new and quite foreign ideas to its own knowledge are 
presented it must first quicken the powers of the re- 
ceiving mind to an apprehension of the idea desired to 
be conveyed, and sometimes this is impossible, because 
the development of the intuitional faculties is insuf- 
ficient to receive the picture presented. I say picture, 
and I mean picture. Every thought in the human 
mind is like a picture. It is an assemblage of impres- 
sions which convey to the understanding what is really 
a picture perceptible to the spirit. (To the spiritual 
eye that can see the soul it is very easy to tell what 
that soul contains, for all past knowledge and thoughts 
are imprinted upon it as clearly as are pictures upon the 
pages of a book of illustrations. It is when an individ- 
ual spirit looks into his own mind and discovers a pict- 
ure long overlooked, though preserved there, that you 
say, in worldly parlance, ''he remembers something "which 
he had forgotten! ") In conveying a new idea it is only 



98 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

necessary to reveal a picture from the impressions liv- 
ing in the inspirer's mind to the receiver's spiritual per- 
ceptions, then excite the intelligence of the receiver to 
go to work and reproduce that picture in his own mind. 
But suppose his working mind lacks some spiritual 
qualities necessary to reproduce certain lights and 
shades of the picture presented ! Ah, there you have 
it! In that case he cannot comprehend — " seeing he 
sees not "; the mind of itself, then, cannot reproduce 
the picture ; nor can any outside influence stir up or 
arouse dormant faculties of his mind, which do not exist, 
to reproduce the picture, and the impression fails to be 
conveyed, unless the inspirer is able to supply from his 
own stores certain spiritual qualities which shall give 
the receiver the necessary strength to apprehend the 
idea. This may be done, and to an extent always is 
done. This is how an inspirational writer, or speaker, 
will often employ words and phrases -of which he is 
ignorant of the meaning. True, they may be words 
or phrases quite current in the world, yet he himself 
may be entirely ignorant of them, because it is always 
as far as possible desirable to employ the words and 
expressions of thought common to the age in which 
the inspiration is given to express the idea, because 
most understandable to that age. (If the inspirer 
should happen to be a spirit who did not understand 
the peculiar language native to the individual he would 
in this case be obliged to employ help from some other 
spirit able to convey his idea who did. This would be 
more automatic, and more shades of thought would be 
apt to be lost.) But to supply spiritual elements of per- 



LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 99 

ception wanting in the individual implies expenditures 
impossible to express to merely human understanding, 
and it is never done where anything else will answer. 

If the truth can be conveyed by the natural powers 
of the individual inspired he is excited and sustained to 
convey it through his own effort and powers ; and it is 
no less the truth than when new qualities of apprehen- 
sion are supplied him. In either case his own effort of 
conveyance of received ideas, or the new spiritual ele- 
ments supplied his mind, are of inconceivable value to 
the individual, because either excites and supplies in 
him a spiritual growth that can scarcely be promoted as 
rapidly through any other means. 

It is one of the spiritual gifts coming most directly 
from the universal good spirit of God, because it is 
a reflection, from grade to grade, of intelligence, from 
the omnipotent power and knowledge of God himself. 

Without inspiration and other revelations or in- 
fluxes of spiritual nourishment there could be no pro- 
gression toward divinity. 

We, in our realm of spirit life, receive inspiration 
from superior intelligence, in higher spirit existences, 
just as earthly ones receive inspiration from higher 
intelligences, only, of course, it comes more perfectly 
and fully to us, according to our superior spiritual 
development. (Mind ! I do not say according to our 
mental development. Yet great mentality will admit 
of a larger degree of spirituality than will small mental- 
ity. While much mentality does not necessarily con- 
tain much spirituality, much spirituality compels a 
growth of mentality in proportion to itself.) 



100 LEAFLETS OF TRUTH. 

What we receive we reproduce to others and from 
others, and by various means from class to class as new 
thoughts and ideas and inspirations are spread to all 
men gradually upon earth, from any source from 
whence they come. 

But no soul can be inspired in any way whose spirit 
is not in love and harmony with the God-spirit of the 
universe. To be without the possibility of inspiration 
of any kind is to be dead to spiritual life — impenetra- 
ble to the light of absolute truth. 

Inspiration is truth. It springs from the absolute 
fount of what is. 

There can be no inspiration of evil, though men do 
speak of being " inspired of the devil." A man may be 
influenced to evil — he can only be inspired to good. He 
also may be influenced to good. All may receive in- 
spiration to a greater or less degree, and always to a 
growing degree, who, with earnest desire, seek to 
develop in the knowledge and love of goodness and 
truth. 

It is not a gift reserved for the few, but falls free as 
the refulgent rays of the morning sun to quicken the 
spirit of life in every organized soul whose unlimited 
destiny is life everlasting. 



TO YOU. 



DEAR READER,— Now that you have gone 
through the pages of this little book, may we 
not express the hope that you have found both pleas- 
ure and profit in its perusal ? And will it be presum- 
ing too much to invite your cooperation in promoting 
its circulation ? 

It may prove a beacon-light to many souls, tempest- 
tossed and struggling amidst the storms, the darkness 
and the confusions of earth life. Our prayer is that it 
may bring to all into whose hands it may come higher, 
truer, grander and sublimer conceptions of the possibil- 
ities which lie before them, and of the wisdom and be- 
nificence of the plans and purposes of the Infinite, as 
displayed, when rightly viewed, in all his works and 
ways. 

Progression is the destiny to which every human 
soul is created. The long ascending line from dead 
matter up to man has been a progress Godward, and 
destined to end only at that point where the two con- 
joined natures, the human and the divine, are harmoni- 
ously associated, the infinite height with the eternal in 
duration, the desired progression, beyond which prog- 
ress cannot go, and in which is revealed true God and 
perfect man. 

Before us there lie the infinite possibilities of indi- 

IOI 



/**- 



102 TO YOU. 

vidual and of race progress. Before us still there is a 
progression Godward, and every human soul is subject 
to its immutable laws. 

Let no one hinder, but rather help, that soul to 
mount the "shining stairs" to the higher planes of 
thought and life. 

Prof. S. R. Miner, 

3906 Cottage Grove Ave., 

Chicago, 111. 
To whom orders for this book should be addressed. 
Sent by mail on receipt of price, $1.00. 




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